One of the tiresome and annoying things that the uninformed say about privacy issues is, “I have nothing to hide.” The idea, of course, is that, “I’m not a criminal or a terrorist so (1) no one will bother surveilling me and (2) my life is an open book and there’s nothing about me that would bother me if it was revealed.”
Both of those statements are almost certainly wrong. Governments and corporations will surveil anyone they can. Governments do it looking for trouble makers and corporations do it to target advertising or, for example, to identify poor insurance risks. You can take for granted that anyone who’s not completely off the grid is being surveilled to some degree.
At first blush, the second argument might seem stronger. Most of us aren’t doing anything that would excite the interest of law enforcement so who cares if they spy on us? Here’s a story about a man who discovered his sexual health searches were being sent to multiple companies. In this case, he was researching vasectomies—presumably for the usual reasons—and found out that that information had been made available to advertising companies. The story is from Australia but don’t congratulate yourself if you live elsewhere; it’s happening where you reside too.
If you’re one of those people who don’t care if complete strangers know you’re considering having a vasectomy, consider this scenario: For one reason or another you do some research on HIV. You don’t have HIV and you’re not doing anything that would put you at risk but let’s say you’re writing a paper on it. This information leaks out the same way the vasectomy searches did and the next thing you know you can no longer get health insurance.
You had nothing to hide but you got surveilled with disastrous results anyway.