<
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/11/21/why-people-dont-demand-data-privacy-even-as-governments-corporations-collect-more-personal-info/>
"When the Trump administration gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement access
to a massive database of information about Medicaid recipients in June 2025,
privacy and medical justice advocates sounded the alarm. They warned that the
move could trigger all kinds of public health and human rights harms.
But most people likely shrugged and moved on with their day. Why is that? It’s
not that people don’t care. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 81%
of American adults said they were concerned about how companies use their data,
and 71% said they were concerned about how the government uses their data.
At the same time, though, 61% expressed skepticism that anything they do makes
much difference. This is because people have come to expect that their data
will be captured, shared and misused by state and corporate entities alike. For
example, many people are now accustomed to instinctively hitting “accept” on
terms of service agreements, privacy policies and cookie banners regardless of
what the policies actually say.
At the same time, data breaches have become a regular occurrence, and private
digital conversations exposing everything from infidelity to military attacks
have become the stuff of public scrutiny. The cumulative effect is that people
are loath to change their behaviors to better protect their data − not because
they don’t care, but because they’ve been conditioned to think that they can’t
make a difference.
As scholars of data, technology and culture, we find that when people are made
to feel as if data collection and abuse are inevitable, they are more likely to
accept it – even if it jeopardizes their safety or basic rights."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
