Open Socialism a compelling alternative to democratic capitalism

Privacy

Privacy is an interesting issue for a societal system as complete privacy can work against the needs of the many. Anyway, these are the general principles of OS.

Very low privacy against automated systems

It can be beneficial to create computer programs to look at an individuals private data. For example an anti corruption program could analyze money going in to people’s bank accounts to look for anything that looks suspicious. Whilst it is only the program looking at everyone’s account activity no other human knows and this information cannot negatively impact an individual.

If an individual was identified as possibly corrupt then a human may become involved to investigate but this would be rare.

Very low privacy against anonymous analysis

Data analysis can be hugely beneficial to society. Anonymized data would be available to researchers or anyone who wanted it for their work. This is fine because there is no way to tie it back to the individual.

Strict privacy against third party access of an individual’s data

It is not necessary for the police or anyone to have a access to an individuals data. A warrant could be obtained to get access in extreme circumstances though.

This one is tricky. It may be that society overall fairs better if individual’s data is always inaccessible.

The more prestigious a role the less privacy

All work should be transparent in OS and anyone in society can view the work of anyone else. The higher up you are in society the more people will want to follow what is going on and the more scrutiny an individual can expect. There may be more anti-corruption programs running as well to ensure such people are working for the good of the people.