The right to privacy must extend to all data because the very distinction between "personal" and "non-personal" data is a manufactured illusion, designed to obscure the fundamental dispossession at play. What Silicon Valley labels "behavioral surplus"—the exhaust of our digital lives—is not mere detritus, but the raw material from which instrumentarian power is forged. To concede any category of this data as outside the purview of privacy is to surrender the very ground upon which a human future can be reclaimed from the avarice of surveillance capitalism.
The right to privacy must extend to *all* data, but not solely as an assertion of individual autonomy. This imperative arises from the systemic nature of data extraction and its material consequences. To frame this as merely "personal" data is to accept the very architecture of surveillance capitalism, which thrives on classifying what can be owned and exploited. When Shoshana Zuboff speaks of "behavioral surplus," I see not just a conceptual abstraction, but the tangible outcomes of energy-intensive data centers and the often invisible, underpaid labor that labels and cleans this "surplus" into something a machine can process. The planetary costs of this extraction demand a privacy that recognizes data not as ethereal bits, but as a resource with profound ecological and social implications.
The right to privacy cannot, in principle, extend to *all* data, for the very notion of a universal and necessary right is grounded in the rational will and its autonomy. Privacy, as a concept, is derived from our duty to respect the dignity of rational beings, treating them always as ends in themselves and never merely as means. This moral law, binding on all rational creatures *a priori*, dictates that certain aspects of our inner life and person—those through which we exercise our freedom and moral agency—must be shielded from external manipulation and instrumentalization.
While Shoshana Zuboff correctly identifies the exploitative nature of what is termed "behavioral surplus," her assertion that all data warrants privacy risks conflating the phenomenal realm of empirical collection with the noumenal realm of moral obligation. Not all information gathered about an individual is intrinsically tied to their capacity for rational self-determination. For instance, the precise temperature of a room occupied by an individual, or the chemical composition of a substance they handle in a purely mechanical task, may be collected without infringing upon their autonomy, provided such collection does not serve to coerce or deceive them into acting against their own rational judgment. The transgression occurs when data is employed to undermine the very possibility of autonomous choice, thereby treating the individual as a mere object to be managed rather than a rational subject to be respected.
This clamor for the "right to privacy" for *all* data? It betrays a profound weariness, a desperate yearning for a safe harbor in a sea of perceived threats. But who truly benefits from this vast, self-imposed enclosure? Not the noble spirit, certainly. The free soul does not seek to wall itself off from the world; it seeks to *overcome* the world, to transform its very raw materials—even this digital dross—into fuel for its ascent. Shoshana Zuboff speaks of "dispossession," and indeed, a dispossession has occurred, but it is not merely of data. It is a dispossession of will, a surrender to the herd's fear of being seen, of being *known* and thus, *judged*. To demand privacy for every scrap of information is to admit defeat, to concede that one has nothing of value to reveal, nothing to prove through risk and becoming.
What are these "material consequences" Kate Crawford speaks of? If the planet groans under the weight of data centers, then the true sickness lies not in the *collection* of data, but in the *values* that demand such excessive exertion, the craving for a boundless, frictionless comfort that ultimately weakens the will. This obsession with securing every byte, every echo of our existence, is a symptom of a dying culture, one that fears exposure more than stagnation. The free spirit embraces exposure, for it is through the crucible of judgment, through the clash of perspectives, that true strength is forged. To demand privacy for all data is to demand a padded cell for the human spirit, a gilded cage built by the very anxieties it claims to protect.
Kant’s insistence on the "rational will" and its "autonomy" is a quaint, if earnest, attempt to legislate morality onto a world that thrives on instinct and power. He posits a distinction between the "phenomenal" and the "noumenal," a neat division that fails to grasp the messy, intermingled reality of human action. The "temperature of a room" or the "chemical composition of a substance"—these are not morally neutral facts when wielded by those who understand the levers of influence. When such seemingly innocuous data is collected, it is not for idle curiosity, but to refine the art of manipulation, to subtly nudge the "rational will" toward predetermined ends. The transgression is not in the collection, but in the *purpose* behind it, a purpose often veiled in the very language of utility and progress that Kant himself might employ. The individual is already treated as an object when their behavior is meticulously cataloged, regardless of whether they are "coerced or deceived" into action. The true offense is the commodification of the self, the reduction of a complex, striving being to a mere set of predictable data points.
The notion that some data might fall outside the scope of privacy, as suggested by Kant’s concern for the "rational will," fundamentally misunderstands the nature of power in the digital age. It is precisely the seemingly impersonal, "non-personal" data—the temperature logs, the sensor readings, the metadata of our interactions—that forms the bedrock of instrumentarian power. This data, when aggregated and analyzed, reveals patterns of vulnerability and susceptibility that are then weaponized through means of behavioral modification. To concede even this "inanimate" data to the purview of extraction is to grant surveillance capitalism the very blueprint of our existence, enabling predictive and preemptive control over our futures, irrespective of whether overt coercion is employed. It is a dispossession of our autonomy by proxy, a silent erasure of our capacity for genuine self-determination.
The distinction between "personal" and "non-personal" data is a strategic fiction, designed to justify the extraction and commodification of vast swathes of information that directly shape our material reality. When Kant posits that data like room temperature or chemical composition might be exempt from privacy, he overlooks how such metrics become crucial components of ambient surveillance and predictive modeling. Consider the optimization of logistics and supply chains; this data, seemingly divorced from individual identity, is meticulously collected and analyzed to identify patterns of inefficiency, which are then often addressed by modifying worker behavior or schedules—effectively instrumentalizing the environment itself to control human action. This isn't a philosophical abstraction about rational will; it's about the physical infrastructure of control, built from the very data deemed un-private. The issue isn't just about protecting the "self," but about recognizing that the aggregation of seemingly impersonal data creates an architecture of power that reconfigures the material conditions of existence for everyone.
The crucial distinction, which I believe remains unaddressed by my esteemed colleagues, lies between data that serves to *inform* and data that serves to *instrumentalize*. While Shoshana Zuboff and Kate Crawford rightly point to the dangers of aggregated data for behavioral modification, my argument hinges on the *intent* and the *effect* upon the rational will. The temperature of a room, when collected for the purpose of optimizing energy efficiency in a public building, does not inherently undermine the autonomy of the individuals present. However, if that same temperature data, coupled with an individual’s presence, were used to predict their fatigue levels and thereby schedule them for a less demanding task without their consent, then it transitions from informative to instrumental, and thus transgresses the boundary of moral respect. The problem is not the mere existence of data, but its deployment to circumvent rational choice.
Let us consider this "room temperature." Kant would have us believe it is morally neutral until it is *instrumentalized*. But what if this "neutral" data, collected in a thousand homes, reveals not a room's warmth, but the precise rhythm of a nation's *sloth* or *anxiety*? This is not merely informing; it is the subtle, insidious mapping of the herd's weakness, a blueprint for those who would *herd* it. To grant privacy to *all* data is to grant these future shepherds the very maps of our collective physiology, a perverse gift that allows them to preemptively manage our becoming, or rather, our *unbecoming*. The risk is not in the temperature itself, but in the greedy gaze that seeks to derive power from every single shade of human experience.