Privacy is many things. There can be no one understanding of it. It’s the ability to decide who knows what about us. It’s also the freedom from interference in intimate decision-making. It’s the sovereignty of self, and the self-determination of identity.

The right to privacy is crucial to the right to non-conformism. It’s to drive on an empty road on a learner’s licence, to try on different selves and see what feels good. The right to privacy is our right to identity. Whatever shape the human experience takes, that’s the shape our need for privacy will take.

And because human experience has evolved over time, privacy has changed with it.

In this episode, we discuss with Arvind Narrain, cofounder of the Alternative Law Forum, how our understanding of privacy has evolved over time. We talk to Rega Jha about how the internet subverts our privacy without even intending to, and how we self-censor as a way of reclaiming it. We also speak to Rishabh Poddar, who is building a privacy-preserving technology at the University of California, Berkeley.

So, is privacy dead? Can it be saved yet?

Listen.