People value privacy in real life, so they should value privacy online

People have reasonable expectations of privacy in their own person, house, vehicles and business offices. They also have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their personal communications such as telephone calls, letters, and journals. Moreover, if a person needs a key or password to gain entry into a space, whether it is physical or electronic, there is also an expectation of privacy in that house, for example, cell phones, bank safety deposit boxes, lockers and luggage. If society worries about privacy in their physical lives, staying in control of their privacy online is every bit as important.^[1] As more of our lives are led online now, society should be drawing the same boundaries in our digital lives that we have in our physical lives. Just as you may not share your paper bank statement with a distant relative or colleague, you would not want them to access your online banking app on your phone. Thirty years ago, somebody would have to steal your private mail to access personal information, but now it can take just a few minutes to hack into someone’s email account. Similar to our physical lives, society should define what information we want to be private to whom. We should consider what we want to remain private among our family, friends, acquaintances and strangers. Since there are inherent vulnerabilities online (like the outside world), society should also consider online security with the same seriousness we apply to locking our home. People should have the right to privacy both in the real world and online, so online privacy should not be abandoned whatsoever.^[2]

[P1] Society cares about their privacy in the offline 'real' world. [P2] Therefore, society should care about their privacy online as well, especially as people can access our private information and data.