Knowing more about a person makes controlling them easier, threatening autonomy

Evidence

Building on Simitis’s work, Berkeley’s Paul M. Schwartz warned in 1989 that computerization would transform the delicate balance of rights and obligations upon which privacy law depends: “Today the enormous amounts of personal data available in computers threaten the individual in a way that renders obsolete much of the previous legal protection.” Most important, Schwartz foresaw that the scale of the still-emerging crisis would impose risks that exceed the scope of privacy law: “The danger that the computer poses is to human autonomy. The more that is known about a person, the easier it is to control him. Insuring the liberty that nourishes democracy requires a structuring of societal use of information and even permitting some concealment of information.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 599

Categorization

• QUESTION: Schwartz’s early framing of concealment as positive liberty for democracy is worth chasing — how did this idea develop or get lost in later privacy scholarship?
• DEFINE: Establishes the foundational definitional claim that privacy law must protect autonomy, not just secrecy.
• XREF: connects to: Automated personality profiling can threaten well-being, freedom, or even life. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 856