Can We Afford Privacy from Surveillance

B ruce Schneier’s claim that privacy against surveillance is largely an economic question is sound1—perhaps making surveillance expensive is our best defense. But will it be good enough? Making surveillance expensive is itself costly. Can we afford to make surveillance expensive enough? Will the economics of improving IT lead us to more or less personal privacy? In this article, I address our ability to protect from surveillance the personal information we permit to be stored or transmitted digitally. To varying degrees, we might opt out of networked digital storage—live “off the grid.” That’s not my topic, and I don’t think it’s highly relevant for most people, especially going forward, as it is and will remain almost impossible to avoid digital storage and transmission of personal information. For example, electronic health records are now mandated, and few forms of economic activity (such as purchasing goods, services, and insurance; paying taxes; and using mediated communications) are without some kind of electronic record. My question isn’t whether we can afford to stay off the grid, but whether we can afford the privacy of our personal information that is on the grid.