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Nothing to hide, but something to lose
- University of Toronto Law Journal
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume 70, Number 1, Winter 2020
- pp. 64-90
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
'I have nothing to hide' is among the most common and controversial arguments against privacy. This article shows why the argument is mistaken on its own terms. To do so, it constructs a model combining the standard economic argument – that only people with 'something to hide' will value privacy – with a concept of intrinsic privacy preferences and shows that the inclusion of this dimension causes the standard argument to fail. It then applies these insights to two legal contexts in which there are active policy debates: the protection of genetic information in the context of employer-provided health insurance and tax privacy.