1 # SOME DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
2 # Copyright (C) YEAR Richard Stallman
3 # This file is distributed under the same license as the A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe package.
4 # FIRST AUTHOR <EMAIL@ADDRESS>, YEAR.
9 "Project-Id-Version: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe n/a\n"
10 "POT-Creation-Date: 2018-04-06 23:17+0200\n"
11 "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n"
12 "Last-Translator: FULL NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n"
13 "Language-Team: LANGUAGE <LL@li.org>\n"
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17 "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
20 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:2
21 msgid "A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe"
25 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:4
26 msgid "by Richard Stallman, 2018-04-03"
30 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:8
33 "**The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet\n"
34 "Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first\n"
39 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:15
41 "Journalists have been asking me whether the revulsion against the abuse of "
42 "[Facebook](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/31/big-data-lie-exposed-simply-blaming-facebook-wont-fix-reclaim-private-information) "
43 "data could be a turning point for the campaign to recover privacy. That "
44 "could happen, if the public makes its campaign broader and deeper."
48 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:21
50 "Broader, meaning extending to all surveillance systems, not just "
51 "[Facebook](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/facebook). Deeper, meaning "
52 "to advance from regulating the use of data to regulating the accumulation of "
53 "data. Because surveillance is so pervasive, restoring privacy is necessarily "
54 "a big change, and requires powerful measures."
58 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:30
60 "The surveillance imposed on us today far exceeds that of the Soviet "
61 "Union. For freedom and democracy’s sake, we need to eliminate most of "
62 "it. There are so many ways to use data to hurt people that the only safe "
63 "database is the one that was never collected. Thus, instead of the EU’s "
64 "approach of mainly regulating how personal data may be used (in its [General "
65 "Data Protection Regulation](https://www.eugdpr.org/) or GDPR), I propose a "
66 "law to stop systems from collecting personal data."
70 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:36
72 "The robust way to do that, the way that can’t be set aside at the whim of a "
73 "government, is to require systems to be built so as not to collect data "
74 "about a person. The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to "
75 "collect certain data, if its basic function can be carried out without that "
80 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:40
82 "Data about who travels where is particularly sensitive, because it is an "
83 "ideal basis for repressing any chosen target. We can take the London trains "
84 "and buses as a case for study."
88 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:45
90 "The Transport for London digital payment card system centrally records the "
91 "trips any given Oyster or bank card has paid for. When a passenger feeds the "
92 "card digitally, the system associates the card with the passenger’s "
93 "identity. This adds up to complete surveillance."
97 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:52
99 "I expect the transport system can justify this practice under the GDPR’s "
100 "rules. My proposal, by contrast, would require the system to stop tracking "
101 "who goes where. The card’s basic function is to pay for transport. That can "
102 "be done without centralising that data, so the transport system would have "
103 "to stop doing so. When it accepts digital payments, it should do so through "
104 "an anonymous payment system."
108 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:56
110 "Frills on the system, such as the feature of letting a passenger review the "
111 "list of past journeys, are not part of the basic function, so they can’t "
112 "justify incorporating any additional surveillance."
116 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:60
118 "These additional services could be offered separately to users who request "
119 "them. Even better, users could use their own personal systems to privately "
120 "track their own journeys."
124 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:66
126 "Black cabs demonstrate that a system for hiring cars with drivers does not "
127 "need to identify passengers. Therefore such systems should not be allowed to "
128 "identify passengers; they should be required to accept privacy-respecting "
129 "cash from passengers without ever trying to identify them."
133 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:73
135 "However, convenient digital payment systems can also protect passengers’ "
136 "anonymity and privacy. We have already developed one: [GNU "
137 "Taler](https://taler.net/en/). It is designed to be anonymous for the payer, "
138 "but payees are always identified. We designed it that way so as not to "
139 "facilitate tax dodging. All digital payment systems should be required to "
140 "defend anonymity using this or a similar method."
144 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:83
146 "What about security? Such systems in areas where the public are admitted "
147 "must be designed so they cannot track people. Video cameras should make a "
148 "local recording that can be checked for the next few weeks if a crime "
149 "occurs, but should not allow remote viewing without physical collection of "
150 "the recording. Biometric systems should be designed so they only recognise "
151 "people on a court-ordered list of suspects, to respect the privacy of the "
152 "rest of us. An unjust state is more dangerous than terrorism, and too much "
153 "security encourages an unjust state."
157 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:89
159 "The EU’s GDPR regulations are well-meaning, but do not go very far. It will "
160 "not deliver much privacy, because its rules are too lax. They permit "
161 "collecting any data if it is somehow useful to the system, and it is easy to "
162 "come up with a way to make any particular data useful for something."
166 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:100
168 "The GDPR makes much of requiring users (in some cases) to give consent for "
169 "the collection of their data, but that doesn’t do much good. System "
170 "designers have become expert at manufacturing consent (to repurpose Noam "
171 "Chomsky’s phrase). Most users consent to a site’s terms without reading "
172 "them; a company that "
173 "[required](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/29/londoners-wi-fi-security-herod-clause) "
174 "users to trade their first-born child got consent from plenty of users. Then "
175 "again, when a system is crucial for modern life, like buses and trains, "
176 "users ignore the terms because refusal of consent is too painful to "
181 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:103
183 "To restore privacy, we must stop surveillance before it even asks for "
188 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:112
190 "Finally, don’t forget the software in your own computer. If it is the "
191 "non-free software of Apple, Google or Microsoft, it [spies on you "
192 "regularly](https://gnu.org/malware/). That’s because it is controlled by a "
193 "company that won’t hesitate to spy on you. Companies tend to lose their "
194 "scruples when that is profitable. By contrast, free (libre) software is "
195 "[controlled by its "
196 "users](https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html). "
197 "That user community keeps the software honest."
201 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:117
203 "Richard Stallman is president of the Free "
204 "[Software](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/software) Foundation, "
205 "which launched the development of a free/libre operating system GNU."
209 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:121
211 "Copyright 2018 Richard Stallman. Released under [Creative Commons "
212 "Attribution NoDerivatives License "
213 "4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/)."
217 #: A_radical_proposal_to_keep_your_personal_data_safe.md:124
219 "Originally published by [The "
220 "Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-law-privacy-big-tech-surveillance) "
projects / text-rms-personal-data-safe.git / blob