Reasons for maintaining privacy

If "information is power", then it follows that personal information in whatever form, or of whatever nature, confers power to the owner of that information.

Few individuals, organizations or governments refrain from making judgements based on their own self interest and the information gained through the loss of privacy, tends towards ultimately being used to wrestle power and autonomy away from the individual.

The loss of privacy, in a modern and evolving technological age, risks putting intolerable strains on existing democracies by empowering governments beyond their ability to contain their natural inclinations towards totalitarian actions and recurring dictatorial political forms.

Until the corrosive effects of power on the human psyche can be understood and sympathetically managed, it seems likely that increasing losses of privacy will inevitably lead to corresponding losses of personal freedoms, if only through the psychological effects on the individual, from the perception that they are being continuously and relentlessly scrutinised. This has been referred to as a 'technique of mass submission'.

The political effects of sustained and expanding losses of privacy also risks the eventual perception that even the secret ballot of the democratic vote is compromised. In an increasingly paranoid and totalitarian state this becomes a relevant factor. Also see Totalitarian democracy.

It has been reasoned that privacy encourages information sharing between individuals, because it creates an environment in which any perpetuated information that does not reference a source can be identified as rumor. If information is shared voluntarily, then facts can generally be approved by references to one or several identified sources, and there are fewer chances for the perpetuation of mistrust. The reasoning behind this is that the intention of a privacy violation does not matter for its effect to perpetuate the environment of rumors that is the root cause of intolerance. Philosophers often ask how people can choose to trust each other if they cannot hide from each other.

One may also wish to maintain privacy by withholding information from others because of stigma (as in the case of some "closeted" homosexuals), or for protection from the law (as when criminals hide information to prevent others from catching them). Often, information (such as bank account numbers or, in the USA, the Social Security Number) may be used against the owner of the information, for example to commit fraud. By maintaining privacy, information owners hope to avoid this fraud or limit effects from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy