Category: Public Policy and National Security

Posted on

COVID-19: on “privacy zealots”, again

Let’s  come back once again to the subject of “privacy zealots” and fundamental rights to clarify some concepts that should be clear but, indeed, are not yet clear enough:

  • “privacy” does not mean confidentiality. The investigative journalist, the drug trafficker and the unfaithful partner all want confidentiality about their activities, but for very different reasons that have nothing to do with “privacy”.
  • “privacy” is not even protection of private life, which is a much broader concept and extends (unlike the conventional notion of privacy) also to public places where crimes of harassment and private violence are applied,
  • “privacy” is not the processing of personal data because the processing of personal data is instrumental to the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. So the GDPR does not protect “privacy” but first of all the fundamental good life and from there to go down,
  • “privacy” is not even (as happened with the environment) a new right to be constitutionalized because the Italian Charter already provides specific rules to protect the inviolability of the home, freedom of thought, freedom of movement and secrecy of communications that “cover” the areas that you stubbornly want to bring within the domain of “privacy”.

Continue reading “COVID-19: on “privacy zealots”, again”

Posted on

COVID-19, privacy zealots and the abuse of “might” in Italy

I sound like a broken record that nobody listens to when I say that in a moment of constitutional rights – the real ones – withholding “privacy” is the least of our concerns.

Nevertheless, many supporters of an extreme concept of “privacy” continue to oppose the general and generalized identification of infected people and people who have come into contact with us because the state “could abuse” it. Continue reading “COVID-19, privacy zealots and the abuse of “might” in Italy”

Posted on

COVID-19, consumers and advertising

The “social distancing” causes, among other things, the rethinking of purchase habits. It is not just a matter of stop spending to survive the current economic crisis. The point is changing priorities and attitude towards objectively useless goods, regardless of the perceived “needs”.

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities,” Oscar Wilde wrote not long ago, but this age is hopefully over. Living secluded shows that our belongings are mostly sufficient to meet daily needs. The absence of social opportunities makes it useless flashing the latest smartphone. The need to work remotely focuses attention on the tools that allow us to do it better, more than on other “compulsive shopping” distractions. We realize first-hand, in other words, how much the superfluous weighs in our lives and how much and what we can do with fewer things. Continue reading “COVID-19, consumers and advertising”

Posted on

COVID-19: serological tests, snake-oil, eggheads in Italy

Pure irrationality, same irrationality that over the years led desperate people to believe in the “Di Bella method” or in the Stamina method to cure cancer or even before that in the “Filipino healers” and other forms of medical superstition spreads in the times of COVID-19.

“Serological tests” for the self-diagnosis of the presence of antibodies specific for the Coronavirus are now on sale. Still, notwithstanding their doubtful effectiveness, they have great commercial success. These tests do not claim explicitly to have a 100% guarantee of actually identify the presence of COVID-19 and make clear that only a physician should administer it. But as they are freely available online, they “cash in” the public hysteria of being able to know “if they have taken the virus”. Continue reading “COVID-19: serological tests, snake-oil, eggheads in Italy”

Posted on

COVID-19: fake news and individual arrogance

Like many people, I often talk about COVID-19 and its impacts in various areas. By academic and professional habit, I try to do so by applying three criteria:

  • to talk about things I have direct knowledge of, to ask for explanations (explanations, not “clarifications”),
  • when I have to draw conclusions of my competence that require non-legal knowledge,
  • to avoid talking about topics outside my area of knowledge.

This attitude, proper of people accustomed to reasoning on a logical basis, is less widespread than one might think and not (only) out of ignorance, but out of a form of intellectual arrogance in the name of which the fact of having competence in an area self-attribute title and authority to talk about whatever topic comes on the floor. Continue reading “COVID-19: fake news and individual arrogance”