A hacking case has been in the news the last week in Finland, where the recorded psychotherapy session notes of 40,000 patients was stolen and has been held for ransom. Essentially emails have been sent to those involved demanding a few hundred euros to be paid to stop the publication of the notes. The company in question, Vastaamo, is essentially destroyed, but it was getting referrals from all over, as well as hospitals. Supposedly, the data wasn't very well stored. The cross section of people is very wide, from a couple people my wife knows to public personalities and the interesting thing is that some people have chosen not to pay and instead wear whatever may come from the publication of their notes. Many have also paid the blackmailer.
I think that this event is bringing to light the value of data and I was trying to explain to a client who was speaking about it this morning in regards to what the data collectors hold on us and our sense of privacy. From my understanding, while we are private from each other on the surface, the Big 5 (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon) and others have a very granular view of our activities, especially once they start cross-referencing data points. Some people don't seem to acknowledge the harm in this when it is used for marketing purposes, but don't really see how they could be manipulated.
With my client I gave a very basic example of a hypothetical patient who is having marriage problems and was discussing it with their psychotherapist. If that data was available to advertisers, what would they push? In scenario 1) adverts for romantic getaways, restaurants, flowers and gifts are pushed. In scenario 2) adverts for Tinder and horny singles waiting to meet are pushed.
Would it have an influence on the outcomes of the marriage?
The data collectors don't need those notes of course and they have no interest in the outcome of the marriage either way, they will sell the advertising space to the highest bidder. We already know how manipulated we can be by these platforms, but the ability to social engineer at an individual and very private level is enormous and the incentive to do so is massive, due to data being the most valuable and lucrative industry.
I posited another hypothetical to my student where I was a blackmailer who had images of him cheating on his wife and asked if he'd pay. The thing is, that information is only valuable while it is private, but if he told his wife himself, I would have nothing to blackmail him over.
And I think this is where the privacy of data comes into it, as while we can claim that we don't want the government tracking our movements, they have access to all that information anyway, if they pay for it, as it exists somewhere. What we are more concerned about is the surface level publicity of our secrets, where for example the platforms track and catalog how much time we spend looking at our ex partners and those we are interested in. We want to be hidden from each other and this gives us a false sense of security, as we are not hidden from those who are more capable and invested in influencing and manipulating our opinions and behaviors.
Data only has saleable value when hidden and we keep driving for our data privacy. But could it be that this in itself is a manipulation by those who collect, categorize and sell our data? Our demand for privacy creates data scarcity and keeping our lives "private" is precisely what gives the data industry value. At the very least, it cuts both ways and it is uncertain which is more harmful, transparency or privacy, where transparency means that we know more about each other than we might want to know and they know about us, privacy means that a handful of companies can control the global social narrative for profit.
What I am wondering is if these kinds of events will further break down our will for privacy or extend it - will we get used to transparency and start demanding more of it? In Finland, a country where it is often possible to check earnings of neighbors in the newspaper, where a car license plate can be texted to an authority to see who owns it and how much is still owing and while people are shy, it is common to go to the sauna naked with relatives and strangers - privacy is still an issue. Which makes one think what people are hiding that they consider so valuable. Google probably knows.
Yes, our data is valuable but it isn't s valuable as we might think, because if we tried to sell it ourselves, no one would be interested in buying it, unless we are famous. I illustrated this with my student with another blackmail scenario, where there was a video of him masturbating and whether he would pay to have it suppressed. There probably isn't many people willing to pay to see a 50+ year old man playing with himself, unless he was someone noteworthy - like a politician. Yet, the awareness of local knowledge with friends and colleagues would force him to pay the ransom because of the potential for social shame - but if it was normalized, there'd be no shame felt.
While I know these are weird discussions to have with a client (we know each other well), using these kinds of examples evoke some kind of emotional response and consideration to highlight the knowledge is power dynamic in play. Currently, most of our lives are recorded as data in some form and organized into knowledge that can be leveraged and turned into power, as either earning potential or social manipulation, generally both together and as they say - power is addictive and money buys more of it.
The incentivization around the usage of data is very poorly aligned with the well-being of society and instead, maximizes profits through division. After all, a happily married couple likely consumes less than two singles.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]