“I Have Nothing to Hide”: A Coping Strategy in a Risk Society

Abstract

The right to control and limit access to one’s information is increasingly discussed not only in the context of governments, but also within big multi-national companies. Estonia is proud of its emerging e-state, where increasing number of services are being provided online with more and more data collected about citizens. The Soviet past of living under the watchful eye of “Big Brother” makes Estonia an interesting and unique case for studying informational privacy. Many have argued that in the modern society, if you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide, using this argument as a way to legitimize loss of privacy. This article explores how the “nothing to hide"-argument can be conceptualized as a coping strategy in complex informational privacy situations. We will introduce some of the results of a nationally representative Estonian survey, “Right to privacy as a human right and everyday technologies”, aimed at studying people’s general understanding of privacy and perception about various potentially privacy invasive situations. Whether acknowledged or not, people are in a state of constant stress – they think many of the actors (the state, employers, enterprises and other people) could jeopardize their privacy, and yet at the same time, they are routinely in situations where their information is collected. To cope with the privacy invasive situations and practices, many have adopted the belief that they have nothing to hide. This strategy, while functional for the individual, means that structurally people adopt self-censorship strategies or slowly lose trust in the society at large.

Full text

Table of Contents 1
Journalism, Representation and the Public Sphere
The Researching and Teaching Communication Series
edition lumière
Bremen 2015

2 Table of Contents
Bibliographische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek
Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbib-
liographie; detaillierte bibliogra phi sche Daten sind im Inter net über http://dnb.ddb.de
abruf bar.
© edition lumière Bremen 2015
ISBN: 978-3-943245-37-0
JOURNALISM, REPRESENTATION AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE
Edited by: Leif Kramp, Nico Carpentier, Andreas Hepp, Ilija Tomanić Trivundža,
Hannu Nieminen, Risto Kunelius, Tobias Olsson, Ebba Sundin and Richard Kilborn.
Series: The Researching and Teaching Communication Series
Series editors: Nico Carpentier and Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
Photographs: François Heinderyckx (section photographs)
Print run: 600 copies
Electronic version accessible at: http://www.researchingcommunication.eu and
http://www.comsummerschool.org
The publishing of this book was supported by the University of Bremen, the Europe-
an Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and the Slovene
Communication Association.
The 2014 European Media and Communication Doctoral Summer School (Bremen,
August 3-16) was sponsored by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
and signicantly funded at the expenses of the Federal Foreign Ofce (AA). It was
also supported by the University of Bremen, ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communica-
tion and Information Research, the „Communicative Figurations“ research network,
the Graduate Center of the University of Bremen (ProUB) and by a consortium of 22
universities. Afliated partners of the Summer School were the European Communi-
cation Research and Education Association (ECREA) and the International League of
Higher Education in Media and Communication (MLeague).

Table of Contents 3
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Leif Kramp, Nico Carpentier and Andreas Hepp
Introduction: Researching the transformation of societal self-understand-
ing ................................................................................................................... 7
PART 1
ReseaRch
SECTION 1: Journalism and the news media
Leif Kramp
The rumbling years. The communicative gurations approach as a heuristic
concept to study – and shape – the transformation of journalism ................. 23
Bertrand Cabedoche
New challenges for journalism education. A contribution to UNESCO politics .57
Eimantė Zolubienė
Risk discourse in news media. Power to dene danger? ............................... 69
SECTION 2: representation and everyday life
Ebba Sundin
The role of media content in everyday life. To conrm the nearby world and to
shape the world beyond our reach ................................................................ 83
Saiona Stoian
Media representations of suffering and mobility. Mapping humanitarian
imaginary through changing patterns of visibility ................................. 93
Maria Schreiber
“The smartphone is my constant companion”. Digital photographic practices
and the elderly .............................................................................................. 105

4 Table of Contents
SECTION 3: public sphere, space and politics
Alexandra Polownikow
Bringing qualities back in. Towards a new analytical approach for examin-
ing the transnationalization of public spheres ........................................119
Hannu Nieminen
Three levels of the crisis of the media – and a way out ....................... 131
Simone Tosoni
Beyond space and place. The challenge of urban space to urban media
studies ................................................................................................. 145
Magnus Hoem Iversen
Employing a rhetorical approach to the practice of audience research on
political communication ...................................................................... 157
SECTION 4: rethinking media studies
Georgina Newton
Socialist feminism and media studies. An outdated theory or contemporary
debate? ................................................................................................. 171
Irena Reifová
Theoretical framework for the study of memory in old and new media age .... 183
Maria Murumaa-Mengel, Katrin Laas-Mikko and Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
“I have nothing to hide”. A coping strategy in a risk society ...................... 195
SECTION 5: academic practice
Nico Carpentier
Recognizing difference in academia. The sqridge as a metaphor for agonistic
interchange .................................................................................................. 211
François Heinderyckx
A practical guide to using visuals to enhance oral presentations in an academic
context ......................................................................................................... 227
Leif Kramp
The digitization of science. Remarks on the alteration of academic practice ... 239

Table of Contents 5
PART 2
The euRopean Media and coMMunicaTion docToRal suMMeR
school 2014 and iTs paRTicipanTs
Andreas Lenander Ægidius ....................................................................................255
Susanne Almgren ...................................................................................................256
Sara Atanasova .......................................................................................................257
Shani Burke ............................................................................................................258
Simona Bonini Baldini ...........................................................................................259
Rianne Dekker .......................................................................................................260
Stephanie de Munter ..............................................................................................261
Flavia Durach .........................................................................................................262
Scott Ellis ...............................................................................................................263
Paula Herrero .........................................................................................................264
Gabriella Fodor ......................................................................................................265
Antje Glück ............................................................................................................266
Magnus Hoem Iversen ...........................................................................................267
Søren Schultz Jørgensen ........................................................................................268
Ralitsa Kovacheva .................................................................................................269
Linda Lotina ...........................................................................................................270
Aida Martori ...........................................................................................................271
Saadia Ishtiaq Nauman ..........................................................................................272
Georgina Newton ...................................................................................................273
Can Irmak Özinanır ................................................................................................274
Bina Ogbebor .........................................................................................................275
Arko Olesk .............................................................................................................276
Ezequiel Ramón Pinat ............................................................................................277
Daria Plotkina ........................................................................................................278
Alexandra Polownikow ..........................................................................................279
Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius ......................................................................................280
Subekti W. Priyadharma .........................................................................................281
Song Qi ..................................................................................................................282
Michael Scheffmann-Petersen ...............................................................................283
Monika Sowinska...................................................................................................284
Maria Schreiber ......................................................................................................285
Saiona Stoian .........................................................................................................286
Jan Švelch ..............................................................................................................287
Robert Tasnádi .......................................................................................................288
Michal Tuchowski ..................................................................................................289
Jari Väliverronen ....................................................................................................290
Monika Verbalyte ................................................................................................... 291
Susan Vertoont .......................................................................................................292
Yiyun Zha ...............................................................................................................293
Dan Zhang ..............................................................................................................294
Eimantė Zolubienė .................................................................................................295

“I have nothing to hide”: a coping strategy in a risk society 195
“I have nothing to hide”.
A coping strategy in a risk society
Maria Murumaa-Mengel, Katrin Laas-Mikko &
Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
Abstract
The right to control and limit access to one’s information is increasingly dis-
cussed not only in the context of governments, but also within big multi-na-
tional companies. Estonia is proud of its emerging e-state, where increasing
number of services are being provided online with more and more data col-
lected about citizens. The Soviet past of living under the watchful eye of “Big
Brother” makes Estonia an interesting and unique case for studying informa-
tional privacy. Many have argued that in the modern society, if you have done
nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide, using this argument as a way
to legitimize loss of privacy. This article explores how the “nothing to hide”
-argument can be conceptualized as a coping strategy in complex informa-
tional privacy situations. We will introduce some of the results of a nation-
ally representative Estonian survey, “Right to privacy as a human right and
everyday technologies”, aimed at studying people’s general understanding of
privacy and perception about various potentially privacy invasive situations.
Whether acknowledged or not, people are in a state of constant stress – they
think many of the actors (the state, employers, enterprises and other people)
could jeopardize their privacy, and yet at the same time, they are routinely
in situations where their information is collected. To cope with the privacy
invasive situations and practices, many have adopted the belief that they have
nothing to hide. This strategy, while functional for the individual, means that
structurally people adopt self-censorship strategies or slowly lose trust in the
society at large.
Keywords: informational privacy, coping strategies, survey data on privacy, Estonia
Murumaa-Mengel, M., Laas-Mikko, K., Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt, P. (2015) ‘“I have nothing to
hide”. A coping strategy in a risk society’, pp. 195-207 in L. Kramp/N. Carpentier/A. Hepp/I.
Tomanić Trivundža/H. Nieminen/R. Kunelius/T. Olsson/E. Sundin/R. Kilborn (eds.) Journalism,
Representation and the Public Sphere. Bremen: edition lumière.

196 M. Murumaa-Mengel, K. Laas-Mikko & P. Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
1. Introduction
The concept of privacy can include a wide variety of interests, rights and as-
pects. Daniel Solove (2002) names six aspects of privacy: the right to be left
alone; restricted access to one’s person (physical person), or the possibility
to protect oneself from unauthorised access; the right to hide certain things
from others; control over personal information; protection of one’s dignity,
individuality and persona; and intimacy – the right to control and limit access
to information that concerns intimate relationships and aspects of life. In this
study, the right to hide information is chosen as the main focal point.
Although the literature on privacy stresses the subjectivity and con-
text-sensitivity, there have been several attempts using questionnaires to ex-
amine privacy-related perceptions (e.g. European Commission, 2011). Our
study focuses on perceived threats to privacy and people’s general beliefs and
attitudes towards the access, collection and use of their data.
In order to open the discussion around the “nothing to hide” argument in
Estonia, we rely on data collected from face-to-face personal surveys using
a standardised questionnaire carried out from May to June 2014. The repre-
sentative sample (n=1000) consists of permanent residents of the Republic of
Estonia aged 15-74. Interviews were conducted in the respondents’ homes in
either Estonian or Russian, as roughly 25% of the Estonian population is Rus-
sian (Population by sex, ethnic nationality and county, 2014). For proportional
representation respondents were chosen randomly and separate weighting was
carried out in accordance with the theoretical model of the target group. The
nal number of respondents was 959. The results of the survey can be extended
to the whole Estonian population of the appropriate age, as the margin of error
did not exceed 3.09 per cent.
Estonia is a particularly interesting country to analyse privacy-related dis-
cussions. On the one hand, the country’s population is very enthusiastic about
new technologies, accepting new inventions very easily. On the other hand,
past experience with the Soviet regime should have made Estonians wary and
apprehensive about any kind of surveillance. In his discussion at the Estonian
Institute of Human Rights conference Prof. Simon Davies pointed out this co-
nundrum and was bafed about the lack of concern among the Estonian popu-
lation about privacy (Video Recordings of the Conference, I Panel, 2014). The
following article briey shares some of the results from the aforementioned
survey to problematize the “nothing to hide” paradox in a post-Soviet context.
In order to do that, we will briey give an overview of the Estonian context
and the theoretical discussion surrounding the “nothing to hide” argument. We
then introduce the Estonian data and conclude that in order to cope with priva-
cy risks and confusing practices, many respondents have indeed adopted the
belief that they have nothing to hide.

“I have nothing to hide”: a coping strategy in a risk society 197
2. Estonia – from Soviet to Skype
Estonia’s history as a member of the Soviet Union is a prime example of mutual
surveillance and collective correction (Zdravomyslova and Voronkov, 2002),
although as a border-area, both Western and Soviet conceptions and patterns
were always present and combined in Estonian everyday practice (Kannike,
2006). In the Soviet Union, people were mostly unable to execute their right to
privacy, as both working life and family life were subjected to state observa-
tion and control (Zdravomyslova and Voronkov, 2002). Furthermore, Kannike
(2006: 216) claims that while in “Western civilization privacy is intimately
connected with the notion of home, the concept of privacy has never been a
feature of Russian or Soviet culture”. It could be argued that during the Soviet
period Estonians did not have much control over their information, so instead
they valued privacy in physical space – their homes (Kurg, 2004). In addition,
people in different over-controlling regimes have throughout history devel-
oped coping mechanisms and strategies to maintain their privacy, at least to a
certain extent (boyd, 2008).
Presently, Estonia has earned positive recognition in the world for its di-
verse and widely used national e-solutions (electronic identity card, electronic
tax returns, e-voting, paperless government, e-health, e-commercial register,
e-school, education information system, etc.). Over 80% of Estonians use the
internet regularly (Information technology in household, 2014) and nd that
online services have had a clearly positive impact on their lives by helping
them save time and making paperwork easier to handle (Kalvet, Tiits and Hins-
berg, 2013). These two factors – perceived usefulness (with a focus on the ob-
jective) and perceived ease-of-use (with a focus on the process) have a central
position in the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1989). A couple of years
ago, every second Estonian had used the state portal eesti.ee (Citizens’ satis-
faction with with state’s public e-services, 2012), which combines state and
municipal e-services, information on various areas of life and the contact data
of public authorities. The state portal eesti.ee also enables the cross-usage of
data between different registers and databases based on the identity code of the
person and the technical data exchange layer called X-road. In our experience,
this is a practice Estonians are proud of, but would not be possible in many
other countries which, contrary to Estonians, see the link between the identity
code, which is a unique personal identier, and cross-usage as a very prob-
lematic mass surveillance-enabling practice (See also discussions in Germany
Hornung and Schnabel, 2009). As new registries and databases are created and
the old ones are updated, modern (democratic) states need to pay attention to
different aspects of citizens’ privacy.

198 M. Murumaa-Mengel, K. Laas-Mikko & P. Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
Although data is nowadays collected, processed and stored in many da-
tabases and cross-used, most people pay little attention to this, or they nd it
unimportant – only 40% of Estonians agreed with the 2011 Eurobarometer
claim that the government is asking for more and more personal information,
whereas the European average was much higher – 64% (European Commis-
sion, 2011). In Estonia, the reason people don’t consider it to be that relevant
a question with regards to their privacy may be due to the policy decision that
wherever possible, data is reused from existing databases, and new data is only
collected on a need-to-know basis. Also, people are able to retrieve informa-
tion about who has used/seen their data from the same eesti.ee online portal or
in related databases.
3. The “Nothing to Hide” fallacy
The nothing to hide argument is frequently used in public discussions about
the legitimacy of surveillance practices. It appears in different forms. This ar-
gument usually justies the mass surveillance by bearing down on the con-
science of people, where the example claim could be: “if you have nothing
to hide, then you have nothing to fear” (for other different forms of argument
see Solove, 2007). While originally nothing to hide arguments referred to the
surveillance practice of governments, since arguably only governments have
limitless resources to conduct mass surveillance, today this appears to be not
true. Google, Amazon and Facebook, U.S. tech giants certainly have the mo-
tivation and resources. In order to discuss what is wrong with the argument “I
have nothing to hide” we need to open up the concept of privacy.
The concept of privacy can include a wide variety of interests, rights and
aspects. We focus primarily on informational privacy, which concerns the data
collected, recorded and shared about a person. Several privacy theoreticians
(Westin, 1967; Rachels, 1975) consider the central notion of privacy to be
control over personal information. Westin (1967) dened privacy as the right
of individuals, groups or institutions to decide when, how and to what extent
the information related to them is communicated to others. This means that the
extent of privacy or the feeling of whether privacy has been violated or not de-
pends on the data subject’s choice as to how well and what kind of information
he or she wants protected. This is based on the liberal idea of self-determina-
tion – a person determines his or her self and decides freely the values that he
or she holds dear. The idea of control seems all-encompassing and absolute,
which is why the modern concepts of privacy tend to narrow the scope of the
term, and emphasize a person’s right to decide who and to what extent some-
one can access and use information concerning him or her (Rössler, 2005;
Moore, 2008). In this respect, the right to privacy includes control over access

“I have nothing to hide”: a coping strategy in a risk society 199
as well as over information usage rights. At the core of this right is the per-
son’s (informed) consent to have his or her personal data collected/accessed
for a specic purpose, such as the purchase of something from an online store.
This consent does not automatically mean that the data can be used in some
other context or circumstances for some other purpose, as often is the case of
surveillance.
Discussions over privacy that take place in the public and academic
spheres reect the risk discourse – privacy is perceived as a constantly endan-
gered value, which undoubtedly needs protection. Therefore, it is important to
discuss what we protect while protecting privacy and what is at risk when we
don’t.
Some scholars, such as Simson Garnkel (2001) and David Brin (1998),
have claimed that privacy is dead and that we should get used to the thought
that our society is extremely transparent. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of
Facebook, has said (Kirkpatrick, 2010) that the era of privacy is over and that
only those people who have something to hide worry about the lack thereof.
The inherent logical error of this argument has been pointed out by Solove
(2007), who says that the claim is based on the false presumption that priva-
cy means hiding bad deeds and wrong behaviour. The people who play the
I-have-nothing-to-hide card often mean that they do not have anything to hide
from a particular audience whom they imagine while sharing information.
They do not mean that they have nothing to hide from absolutely anyone who
could potentially reach that information, especially in online settings (Siibak
and Murumaa, 2011).
According to Valeria Steeves (2009), privacy helps us create meaningful
relationships with others. She argues that striving for privacy is a social prac-
tice which allows social actors to draw a line between themselves and others,
thereby, being open or closed to social communication. In accordance with this
theory, social actors are capable of choosing what is most important for them
and dening themselves in relationships. The protection of personal autonomy
and the right to dene him- or herself in social context is the reason why we
should not give over our privacy.
Value conicts and choices between different values are seen today as a
natural part of the pluralist society and privacy should be weighed against oth-
er important and sometimes incomparable values (Steeves, 2009; Nissenbaum,
2010). We risk daily the invasion of our privacy by publishing sensitive in-
formation about ourselves in signicant relationships or social environments;
generally, we do not want “perfect privacy” – that is, complete separation,
anonymity or exclusion from social relations. Therefore, as mentioned earlier
– context matters.

200 M. Murumaa-Mengel, K. Laas-Mikko & P. Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
When comparing value of privacy against value of security, privacy is of-
ten characterized as an individual and security as a societal value or interest; in
a value conict, the societal interest will be preferred. (Himma, 2007; Solove,
2007). Violation of the right to privacy can result in many undesirable conse-
quences for a person, such as identity theft and access to person’s property or
benets; injustice caused by misuse of certain information; unequal treatment
or harm to one’s dignity. Some scholars (Gavison, 1980; Steeves, 2009) claim
that privacy also has societal importance; it is essential to democratic govern-
ment or social relations since it fosters the moral autonomy of persons, who
are central to those concepts. However, privacy violation risks to society are
difcult to assess because as a rule we are dealing with so-called soft impacts
and impacts in degree (not totally). We cannot say exactly how many people
need to feel that their privacy has been invaded and in which context it needs
to happen so that people would lose trust in government institutions or that
democracy would be endangered.
The asymmetrical information and lack of transparency of surveillance
practices and how the data are analyzed puts citizens in a disadvantaged po-
sition. The surveillance practices do not violate only the right of privacy, but
personal autonomy. As noted by Solove (2007), this is a structural problem.
The question here is not that all surveillance practices are inherently unjus-
tied. Rather, there is a need to discuss these issues in public, declare and
enact clear principles about justied surveillance practices and technologies;
maintain independent and democratic control mechanism to get oversight how
these rules are followed.
In our empirical sections we rst explore, through data, which actors are
perceived as a threat to people’s informational privacy. Then, we look at the
attitudes people express about collection, access and use of their information
in general.
4. Everything is a threat to privacy...
To establish if the discussions about privacy are only relevant in the academia
and the policy domains, we asked our respondents to which extent they agreed
or disagreed with the statement “The worry about the safety of personal data
is exaggerated”. The majority of respondents (53%) were of the opinion that
being worried about personal data is relevant, however, the share of people
who nd that the whole issue has been exaggerated is also signicant – 41%.
This shows that while many people are concerned about the issue, many have
adopted an attitude of not caring as one of their coping mechanisms in this
confusing situation.

“I have nothing to hide”: a coping strategy in a risk society 201
In order to understand who and what is perceived as a potential threat,
we asked the respondents to rate different actors on the basis of whether those
would be considered to be threatening to people’s privacy (Figure 1). A ma-
jority of respondents nd all the listed actors to be potential risks (60-72%
agreement rate regarding different actors).
Figure 1: To what extent are different parties perceived as threats to priva-
cy (% of respondents, n=959)
People nd the biggest threat to their privacy to be information collection via
smart devices (mobile phones, tablets) and applications, but there were also
many who answered “I don’t know” (12%) because they simply had not come
into contact with these technologies. Acquaintances were seen as the least
threatening in relation to the monitoring and collecting of information.
“Everything is a threat” or that “we live in the risk society” (Beck, 1992)
perception is undoubtedly partly rooted in the media frames related to the top-
ic – subject matter included in public discussions is adopted into personal risk
perceptions. In the aftermath of 9/11, a “securitization” discourse also emerged
in which security issues are dealt with at an accelerated rate and therefore may
be allowed to violate normal social rules (Hansen and Nissenbaum, 2009). This
has enforced the view that national or collective security is by default more
important than other rights and values, especially privacy. In recent years, the

202 M. Murumaa-Mengel, K. Laas-Mikko & P. Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
media have covered many cases of information misuse by tech giants (Google,
Facebook, etc.) and governments, which have raised awareness of the topic
among citizens.
Returning to Figure 1, we see that 66% of respondents think that the Es-
tonian state could be a threat to people’s privacy. Curiously, when in another
question we divided “the state” into more specic actors (medical and educa-
tional institutions, local government) and posed the question in the form of
“how do you feel your data is being used”, contradictory evidence emerges:
the level of trust was 89-71%. We can notice contradictions and confusion in
people’s answers, as it is often a topic that is hard to grasp. People seem to
perceive risks to privacy and the topic as relevant, so one might presume that
they should see their role as active.
5. ...but there is nothing I can do about it!
A sort of fatalist attitude, an accepting of the unpleasant state of things, which
became evident in the Eurobarometer privacy survey (European Commission,
2011), can be seen in our study as well. 83% of the respondents agreed with the
statement about data being collected anyway and a person ultimately having
no control over it (Figure 2).
Figure 2: To what extent do people agree to the claim about data being
collected despite their preferences (% of all respondents, n=959)

“I have nothing to hide”: a coping strategy in a risk society 203
In addition, as pointed out in the previous section, a large proportion of people
think that it is important to be worried about the protection of personal data,
but 74% of respondents also agreed with the claim “I have nothing to hide”. To
a limited extent, we see that this is more common in the case of older people
(70% among 25-34-year-olds, 79% among 65-74-year-olds). Considering Es-
tonia’s totalitarian regime history and people’s experiences and past everyday
practices that many still remember, this could be interpreted as a distancing
coping mechanism. Folkman and Lazarus (1988) said that such avoidance,
among other emotion-focused coping strategies, that was oriented toward
managing the emotions of stress and everyday life in USSR was a source of
deep cultural stress (Kannike, 2006). On the other hand, as Kannike (2006:
225) points out, during many Soviet years, “the main slogan was opening up
the private sphere to the state and the collective”, and this message might still
be embedded in collective consciousness, which is why we see a higher per-
centage of agreement in older age groups. This nding is rather paradoxical, as
Soviet history has also left people with the practices of counterculture, hidden
meanings, double thinking and practices (one for the public self, one for the
private self) (Kreegipuu, 2011).
There are a couple of possible explanations behind previously mentioned
contradictions in our results - everything is perceived as a potential threat, but
at the same time people express trust in particular institutions and feel they
have nothing to hide. From a utilitarian perspective the perceived trade-off can
simply be appealing enough and this makes it easier to hand out information
about oneself and friends. The most common motivator for a trade-off is tied to
the consumption of a product or service – to use a web environment one needs
to disclose personal data. A step further – in order to use the service or product
even more easily or efciently, one needs to provide more information, and so
on. The Eurobarometer study on privacy (European Commission, 2011) shows
that the most signicant reason as to why people disclose personal information
is to use a service in either a social network or e-commerce (61% and 79%
respectively). Similarities occur in other domains as well (e.g. communication
with the state is less complicated via e-channels, it is easier to nd one’s data
in one cross-database, etc.).
Additionally, Estonians stand out in cross-country comparisons because
of signicantly higher government trust rates – in 2014 trust in the government
was 44% in Estonia, the EU average was 26% (European Commission, 2014).
One possible explanation can be that the positive discussion around Estonia’s
e-state and the advances around it make critical discussions and considerations
almost invisible even in the mainstream public debate/sphere. The years of liv-
ing under foreign rule may have meant that “Estonia’s own state” is regarded
with trust and sense of ownership that allows less uncritical attitudes.

204 M. Murumaa-Mengel, K. Laas-Mikko & P. Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt
6. Conclusion
We should ask ourselves why we as a society should not tolerate the claim, “I
have nothing to hide”. In reality, everyone has something to hide from others
(Solove, 2007). We are not only talking about covering up socially unaccept-
able or embarrassing behaviour, thoughts and convictions by sheltering behind
the shield of the right to privacy. Privacy is primarily valued because it protects
people’s freedom of choice to disclose personal information as they see t.
Nowadays, personal responsibility is often stressed and the public has
accepted the discourse - people frequently think that the responsibility for per-
sonal data on the Internet falls on the individual (European Commission, 2011).
For regulators and legislators, it is easy to see the individual as responsible (for
digital literacy as well as privacy) and people have adopted this point of view.
Privacy decisions are based on complex, subjective perceptions of threats and
potential damage, psychological needs, and actual personal returns play an
important role and affect our decisions (Acquisti and Grossklags, 2007). But
the problem is that we usually lack complete information about technologies
which themselves are very often technically complex and non-transparent re-
garding data processing practices and possible consequences. Once again, such
a complex situation can trigger mental disengagement from the subject, and
acceptance of the “I have nothing to hide” argument.
If the state or large corporations ignore the right to privacy, it primari-
ly violates an individual’s freedom of choice and decreases general trust in
these institutions (and in the state in general regarding state authorities). Such
practices could encourage the spread of the self-censoring strategy. Several
researchers have stated that the strategies that are based on minimum content
creation and users’ low activity level can have a negative impact on main-
taining and developing friendships (Marwick, Murgia-Diaz and Palfrey, 2010;
Larsen, 2007).
Whether acknowledged or not, people in Estonia and in many other coun-
tries saturated with modern technologies are in a state of constant stress – they
believe their privacy is threatened by various parties but have to cope with an
everyday life context in which their information is constantly accessed, col-
lected and used. We have argued in this text, that “nothing to hide”, while rou-
tinely used as coping strategy, is not an acceptable solution. Instead, the state
and big corporations need to take steps to support the individual by making
their information use more transparent and helping people to understand more
clearly whether and to which extent they need to fear about information being
disclosed. In the society where we live, these responsibilities need to be shared
in order to be adequately managed.

“I have nothing to hide”: a coping strategy in a risk society 205
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the support of Estonian Science Fund personal
grant PUT44 and Estonian Institute of Human Rights for funding the survey.
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“I have nothing to hide”: a coping strategy in a risk society 207
Biographies
Maria Murumaa-Mengel is a Junior Research Fellow of Media Studies and a PhD student at the
Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Tartu. Her PhD thesis is about the transformation
of the meaning of privacy and imagined audiences in social media. Maria is currently involved in
research projects focusing mainly on media education and inter-generational relationships in the
information society.
Contact: maria.murumaa@ut.ee
Katrin Laas-Mikko works at the Estonian Certication Centre as a quality manager, and is doing
her doctorate at Tartu University. Her thesis is connected to moral aspects in the context of new
technologies and the risks associated with them. She has participated in several projects of The
European Union that have been related to technologies of identity and privacy (RISE, TECHNO-
LIFE, FIDELITY, etc.) through the Centre of Ethics at the University of Tartu and The Institute
of Baltic Studies.
Contact: katrin.laas-mikko@ut.ee
Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt is professor of media studies in the University of Tartu, Institute of
Social Sciences and a researcher in Estonian National Museum. Her interests are internet user
typologies, user-friendly online spaces as possible venues for participation and participatory ap-
plications for organisations. She is leading and participating in several national and international
projects. Her recent publications include among other things collection Democratising the Mu-
seum: Reections on Participatory Technologies (2014) Peter Lang Verlag edited together with
Pille Runnel.
Contact: pille.vengerfeldt@ut.ee