Transparency and Privacy

Our world is currently very confused about what should be transparent and what should be private.

Transparent

Governments

Public Institutions

Charities

Partnerships

Money directed at politics

Publicly listed companies

Philanthropy

Management of the Commons

Private

The data and meta-data of individuals, including social sharing

Conversations between people

Our health records

Individuals financial records

=Essentially all personal records and digital actions

The impulse to keep those institutions that support the public interest private is a sure invitation to corruption and nefarious practise.

To accuse those who expose the nefarious and corrupt practices of our public institutions and elected officials as traitors is to sign a pact with the devil. It will only lead to amplification.

It takes people of extraordinary ethics and integrity to resist the many temptations of secrecy that our public institutions currently offer. A corner cut here, another one there, is the slow and steady path to corruption.

Yet these public institutions are now telling us a very embellished story as to why they need to remain private as they hack the privacy of individuals for the collective “protection.”

Having greater transparency in the public domain is a much bigger lever for humanity’s safety than chasing the rogue individuals. 

Corruption (and its consequences – the arms race, war, propaganda manipulation of whole populations…) is largely institutional.

October 3rd 2019

Photo taken October 3rd, 2019, by Tony