ce-paper/source/sections/introduction.tex

\section{Introduction}
In our everyday life we are often exposed at articles, newspapers and media that argue about the possibility to sacrifice part of our privacy in favor of a \textbf{greater good}, the security of our society.\\
In this paper I want to prove that if we want to sacrifice our privacy we should do it in a conscious and informed manner, not in a subtle way like we are doing it now.\\
Indeed too often we give up a bit of our privacy simply by clicking the \textbf{agree} button on the \textit{terms of service} of a new application that we just downloaded on our smartphone.\\
I also find particularly subtle that in some way we care about our privacy when the actor involved is a government or a public entity, but too often we don't think at the consequences of leaving in the hands of private companies and organizations rights over our data, informations and communications.\\
This allows the \textbf{proliferation} of a situation of bulk data collection and global surveillance that in my opinion is not justified and also put at great risk important rights and values of our society. This is the main and urgent problem that we have to cope with in my opinion.\\
In doing this I will start by briefly introducing the concept of individual privacy and how our life and our relationships are influenced by it, summing up the work done in this famous paper \cite{privacyimportant} by James Rachels.\\
Then I'll try to expose and detail some of the concepts of a possible point of view on the matter that \textit{Charleyne Biondi} developed and exposed during this presentation \cite{cccvideo}.\\
This really has been the inspiration point for this paper, because I find that the main concepts and idea exposed are really interesting and explain very well what is the problem with global surveillance. I want to place a little disclaimer here and say that there is a debatable and difficult concept explained in the last section of the paper. We will talk about \textbf{essence} and \textbf{inner self} of an individual. I assume that for the rest of the discussion when I say inner self I mean, citing this definition \cite{innerself}, "a person's true or internal mind, soul, or nature", and we may also try to imagine it as the inner part of ourself that really distinguish us from the external world. Of course trying to explaining what this is is not an easy job, even philosophers would have difficulties in agreeing on a common definition of this concept, because basically no one knows what our essence is. But for this reading I suggest to simply follow your gut reaction and imagine what your mind pictures when we say inner self.\\
Indeed what I will try to do is to detail as much as possible the ideas by \textit{Biondi} and to find a link with the work of \textit{Rachels} and with the scenario depicted in this book \cite{thecircle} by \textit{Dave Eggers}, in order to sustain my thesis that we need to gain awareness on the current situation of surveillance and to find solutions to this problem.\\
What I will try to prove is that the answer that we too often hear \textbf{"I have nothing to hide so I don't care"} minimizes the problem, and is not acceptable in the sense that the consequences of what we decide in the field of digital privacy, are too important and closely concern all of us, and so we should discuss on this matter and decide what is the direction we want to follow.\\
And since the online and offline worlds are becoming unified, we should really care of these issues because they will touch core aspects of our lives.