The Government Protects Our Food and Cars. Why Not Our Data?

[bognition]

Probably because the threat is relatively new. It took hundreds of thousands of deaths and decades to get us to the current mandated safety standards for cars. It’s going to take a while for tech to catch up.

[noobermin]

The FDA was formed just years after the Jim the horse incident[0]. The issues from poor data practices has existed for a decade or more. It has more to do with the poor functioning of the political system these days.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_%28horse%29

[dyarosla]

Heck, most people in government simply don’t even understand the issue, let alone figuring out how to solve it.

AFAIK only one US 2020 presidential candidate atm is even talking about data rights.

[eeZah7Ux]

And yet Churchill saw how Turing's work on Enigma was promising and gave him a lot of support.

There are many other examples.

Politicians are perfectly capable of understanding the social impact of technology... when they need to.

[notelonmusk]

The perceived impact is much less noticeable than deaths. When the bodies pile up you invest in seatbelt regulations, and may even create jobs making them. What if there's no bodies to count?

[mbostleman]

Because our food and our cars are something made by someone else that we will buy in the future, at which point the government’s involvement ceases. “Our” data is something that is generated by us, about us, and is ongoing. The last thing some of us want is the government even having access to it much less charged with “protecting” it.

[notacoward]

This "directionality" is the first thing I thought of too. Unlike these other things, data originates with the consumer. Also, the transfer between consumer and platform usually does not include a financial component so it's not "commerce" in the usual sense. The issues involved are just as important despite these differences, the need (however great or small) for regulation doesn't change either, but such differences definitely affect what kinds of regulation might be appropriate or how they might be applied.

[mch82]

How come access to the data is needed to protect it?

[jonbronson]

Largley because of a paralyzed legislative branch, heavily indebted to corporate donors, compounded by a polarized public that is largely too distracted to focus on this fundamental problem.

[K0SM0S]

Plot twist: zooming out of the USA, you've just described most countries.

Incidentally, countries as a concept may greatly distract the so-fragmented public from many a no less fundamental problem...

[djohnston]

These days I can't help but read every NYT piece as a desperate plea to the govt for a rescue operation from its tech usurper.

Also, the govt is demonstrably worse at protecting information than any FAANG, and they are all abiding by GDPR which is the right regulation IMO

[dlp211]

Protecting data via regulation doesn't require the government have access to the data.

[Despegar]

GDPR is literally the government protecting people's privacy and data. That's what this article is advocating for.

[Fakira]

Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well. Data is one area where humanity has made the fastest progress compared to Cars and Food.

[bumby]

Care to elaborate? Outside of unleaded gas, most externalities in the car industry seem to progress slowly in the absence of regulation.

Technology in cars can be rapid but seems to ignore those externalities

[dlp211]

I just don't get where this type of ideaology comes from. There are plenty of countries with weak governments and not one of them is successful.

[mch82]

Is it true regulation slows progress?

History shows regulation speeds technical progress.

    - Manhattan Project
    - Apollo program
    - Public university research
    - ARPANET
    - Aircraft
    - Spacecraft
    ...

[matz1]

>Because some of us want our government not to protect our Food and Cars as well.

This. Sure I would like some protection for our food but i hate the too much protection that currently US government has right now.

[jonahx]

> not to protect our Food

What system would you prefer to protect your food?

[journalctl]

Progress for whom?

[deltron3030]

Maybe because of population growth. Food and car failure is directly linked to mass deaths and diseases, potentially decreasing the population, free data flow is linked to better business decisions, and therefore wealth for starting families, potentially increasing the population.

So if population growth is your priority as nation, it could make sense to allow free data flow if you ignore potential long term side effects that could counter this.

The downsides of free data flow and the permanence of personal data are mostly affecting the mental health of people which could result in more deaths from drug abuse and other self destructive behaviors, or even civil wars long term.

This of course could contradict free data flow as a viable strategy for long term population growth.

A battle between short and long term politics, with long term politics being clearly at a disadvantage because they're less obvious and harder to predict/measure, and harder to sell in political campaigns.

[einpoklum]

If the US government protected your food, people would not be sold so much crap full of carcinogenic additives or cooked up in chemical vats.

As for cars - the government protects car _manufacturers_, if at all. And that's also in the form of "anti-protection" of public transport...

Finally - how would the US government protect your data if it's intent on getting its hands on a copy of as much of it as it can, then mining it and searching it for various purposes? (Snowden revelations)

PS - The firewall blocks me :-(

[geoalchimista]

Because that would grant the government the power that enables it to become a worse perpetrator even than the big tech?

[BurningFrog]

I think Snowden showed the government already is a much worse data privacy perpetrator.

[Nasrudith]

That is a confusion if shared words being assumes in the same meaning. Data protection is fundamentally nothing like car or food safety. The other two can literally directly kill you. Data also acts "at a distance". If I smash a cooy of your car or poison a copy of your lunch it won't harm you in any way. Not so if sensitive information leaks.

Not to mention the abuse potential is fundamentally massively different. It isn't apples to oranges but apples to formica countertops

[Despegar]

Financial products exist only in databases and they can't kill you, yet they're heavily regulated for good reason.

[dependenttypes]

"Data protection" goes against the spirit of free software and it is similar to patents and copyright.

[megablast]

> The Government Protects Our Food and Cars.

I wish they would stop protecting cars and start protecting people. 40,000 die every single year due to cars, and over 4 million injured or disabled.

[Gys]

Many people die in car accidents and die from food poisoning. How many people die each year from unprotected data?

Disclaimer: cannot read the article

[Tycho]

The great public works of the 21st century, the Hoover Dams of our time, will be privacy-preserving digital infrastructure.

[lacampbell]

Why not our information? Nationalise the New York Times!

[libbyc5]

I've seen one instance where the NYT seemed to recognized their complicity in the problem

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/opinion/data-privacy-trac...

I was pretty proud of them then

[seer]

I know that HN’s libertarian views often conflict with the top down EU bureaucracy. But when I heard about GDPR here in europe I thought to myself - that looks very close to what all those people have been wishing for - and its actually here now.

It remains to be seen if it holds up in practice what it offers in spirit. But the idea that companies are forced to think about my personal data as if it was payment credentials, with similar rigor, and penalties, just sounds so awesome to me as a customer.

In the EU personal data _is_ protected as if its cars, food, trains or planes. And honestly its great :)

[ddingus]

One would wonder.

I am pro this idea. I am not sure it can be done via technical means alone.

But, govt is super dysfunctional too.

We, as people, have work to do in the US.

[tomohawk]

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) could not even protect the information of people with security clearances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...

Trey Gowdy's questioning of the people in charge of the OPM is a classic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK-zEGjxuAA

[pstuart]

The GOP is anti-government and spares no chance to demonstrate that.

That doesn't forgive the failure, but instead of saying "let's fix it then", the answer is always: private enterprise!