Nothing to Hide

"I'm sorry... did you want to go to the bathroom too?"

"Oh no, I was just following you."

"Oh, well I'd rather you not follow me."

"Wait, it's not like you have something to hide, right? Make sure you don't leave the door closed."

Sarah had always been the type to say she didn't mind surveillance. "I have nothing to hide," she'd shrug whenever privacy debates came up. "If you're not doing anything wrong, why worry?"

That was before she met Alex and his wife.

It started innocuously enough. The couple had moved in next door and seemed friendly, if a bit... attentive. When Sarah went to check her mail, Alex would coincidentally be checking his too. When she took out the trash, there was Alex, also heading to the bins.

"Just making sure you're safe," Alex would say with a smile.

The bathroom incident was just the beginning.

"Why are you reading my grocery list?" Sarah asked, finding Alex peering over her shoulder in the cereal aisle.

"I'm not reading it," Alex replied. "I'm just... observing. You know, making sure you're making healthy choices. Nothing wrong with that if you have nothing to hide, right?"

Sarah felt a strange twist in her stomach. Those were her own words being thrown back at her. "You should just use your phone to keep track of your groceries. That way I don't have to peer over your shoulder... I can just access it quicker that way."

It escalated quickly after that.

Alex began opening Sarah's packages ("Just making sure they're safe before you touch them"). Started listening in on her phone calls ("Public space, public conversation"). Even followed her on dates ("Two heads are better than one when it comes to safety"). When Alex was sick, or unavailable, his wife Siri would take over.

"This is insane," Sarah finally exploded after finding the couple rummaging through her purse. "You're violating my privacy!"

"Privacy?" Alex looked genuinely confused. "But you always said you had nothing to hide. We're just keeping an eye on things. Making sure you're not up to anything... problematic."

"There's a difference between having nothing to hide and wanting some basic human dignity!"

"Is there, though?" Siri tilted her head. "I mean, if you're really not doing anything wrong, why does it matter if we're watching? You know we are the good guys here, right?"

Sarah stared at the couple, finally understanding the suffocating weight of constant observation. The way it changed how she moved through the world. How she started second-guessing perfectly normal behaviors because someone was always watching, always judging, always ready to misinterpret.

"By the way, who was the guy you were talking to over text last night? Doesn't look like your date."

She realized she'd been editing herself without even knowing it. Choosing different books at the library because Alex might see. Texting friends less because Siri might be listening. Even her thoughts felt different, more careful, more constrained.

"You don't understand," she said quietly. "Privacy isn't about hiding bad things. It's about having the space to be human."

Alex shrugged. "Sounds like something someone with something to hide would say."

The next week, Sarah was having coffee with her friend Andrea, finally feeling like she could breathe again after getting a restraining order against the couple.

"God, that sounds awful," Andrea said. "I can't believe someone would be so nosy"

"I know, right? It made me realize how important my privacy actually is. Like, even if you're not doing anything wrong, you still need space to just... exist."

Andrea nodded sympathetically, then glanced at her phone. "Did you see this thing about ChatControl? The EU wants to scan everyone's private messages to catch criminals."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"Well, I mean, I think it's a good idea. There are crazy people out there, you know. I have nothing to hide? If it helps catch the bad guys, why not? It's not like they're going to care about my boring conversations."

Sarah opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. She looked at her friend, really looked at her. In the distance, Alex was watching.

---

I find it fascinating when people say that they have nothing to hide. I usually jokingly say: unlock your phone and hand it to me. Your phone is a window to your life. Where a lot of people believe that it is possible to give full access to properly vetted authorities, in the world of security, when you open a door for one person, you incidentally open it to everyone.

Imagine the police needs access to your computer for an investigation. They create a "backdoor", a special way to get into encrypted systems that only the "good guys" are supposed to use. But here's the problem: that backdoor doesn't magically disappear once the investigation is over, and it doesn't have a sign that says "authorized personnel only."

Now imagine a hacker discovers this backdoor exists. Suddenly, they can access not just your computer, but potentially thousands of others with the same vulnerability. They can impersonate you, steal your identity, drain your bank accounts, or blackmail you with your private information. The very tool designed to catch criminals becomes a weapon for creating new ones.

This isn't theoretical, it happens repeatedly. Every "secure" system we've built with intentional vulnerabilities has eventually been exploited by bad actors. The TSA master keys were photographed and 3D-printed. The NSA's surveillance tools were stolen and used by cybercriminals worldwide. Even the most sophisticated security agencies can't keep their own secrets safe, yet we're supposed to trust them with ours.

The uncomfortable truth is that there's no such thing as a backdoor that only works for the "right" people. In cybersecurity, we call this "the going dark problem". The real problem isn't that criminals might hide from surveillance; it's that surveillance infrastructure inevitably becomes criminal infrastructure.

The thing is, privacy isn't about hiding wrongdoing. It's about preserving the space where we can be fully human. Messy, complicated, evolving, and free.

We all have something to hide. We hide our vulnerabilities, our embarrassing moments, our half-formed thoughts, our private jokes, our intimate conversations. We hide not because these things are wrong, but because they're ours.

When we say we have "nothing to hide," we're not really talking about transparency. We're talking about trust. We're saying we trust the watchers to never misuse what they see, never misinterpret, never change, never be corrupted, never be hacked, never expand their scope.

We're betting our humanity on the assumption that power, once given, will never be abused. History suggests this might not be a winning bet.

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