There is dissonance in people's cognitive understanding of the concept of government. Truly, government can be refered to as an entity or organization but in the deeper sense of it, every government is made of humans, we make any government function. Why I need to point this out before diving into the topic is quite simple, I need to make you understand that every atrocities committed in the name of "government" is committed by a specific or group of individuals within the government but we usually generalize when refer to this people by using the name government.
Understanding human deficiency is the only way you might fully understand what I'm about to say. Now imagine, we so called inadequate human that forms a government now decide to perform excessive surveillance that intrudes people's privacy for the sake of safety, does it not sound like a joke? For a government that couldn't manage it's own data appropriately due to unqualified and unskilled officials within the government, such government is expected to be trusted with our personal data?
Most people might not understand how personal and intimate privacy is, until they lose it. Privacy protection rights for every citizen of a country is not something to joke with or handover to the government like Christmas present. In a digital era when ensuring the safety of individual privacy is already difficult, now imagine every bit of information about you being accessed even when you are not aware of it.
Every bit of information, when you eat, sleep, work, bank information, personal data, everything. It will feel like being striped naked. I mean look at the situation of the world right now, how the apps we trusted sell off our data to governmental agencies to gain privilege and see how third party use this data against us. Anyone with access to government database, suddenly have access to everyone's data. Anyone could be psycho analyzed at any point and how this information will be used against us, we have no idea.
i know some of you will be like, oh it is for our security. Tell me, which government has ever done exactly what they said without any hidden addition or substraction? I don't know about the people in other countries, probably some of you are enjoying some privileges from the government that I have never heard of but in my own country, when the government says something, it is never as it is.
Government is not a machine or robot and it is made up of the people. Do you know one thing common among humans, it is called making mistake. Imagine an individual mismanaging your personal data or using it for personal gain, like giving it to individuals or or third-party organizations that can do you serious harm, all he or she would say is " Opps!!! it was a mistake. We are talking about risking information that could be used to know every single detail about you being leaked or misused all for the sake of security, is government that trustworthy?
It might seem like I'm thinking too deep about this but I have experienced when government officials are granted the right to invade citizens right for the sake of security and it turned out to be a disaster. Just like how our police men where granted the right to "Stop and search individuals" Now police officers now use it to extort the youths by stoping them at checkpoints and going through their phones. In so doing, they request money from them and sometimes unlawfully seize their belongings by labelling them to be fraudster without proof.
Now every youth is terrified because it might be anyone's turn tomorrow, people have died due to this excessive harassment of "Stop and search", So tell if it is within my best interest to still grant the same government Access to my personal data? if I have to give up my privacy so that the government can be close to me - to protect me, I don't want it. I prefer they protect me from a distance. I don't trust the government to have my best interest at heart, they are just individuals pushing their own personal agenda.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled Privacy or security in hive learners community.
Cover image
Image 1
