The Ignored Intimacy of Data

Why Privacy Needs to Come Before Monetisation

When people engage in acts involving intimacy, exposure, or long-term risk, society demands robust protections. Data exchange now belongs in that same category—but the safeguards remain mostly symbolic. This failure reveals a deeper misunderstanding of what personal data truly is. It is not a technical by-product. It is an intimate record of a life—continuously generated, permanently stored, and commercially exploited under conditions no reasonable person would accept in any other domain involving such deep vulnerability.

The Ethics of Intimacy

To understand how far this gap has grown, it helps to start from familiar ground. Most adults recognise the basic principles that govern intimate life. These are not controversial; they reflect cultural norms grounded in autonomy, dignity, and genuine consent.

• Consent must be informed, genuine, and freely revocable.
• Boundaries must be discussed and respected.
• Health and safety require routine care and risk management.
• Psychological stability matters; impulsive exposure has lasting effects.
• Privacy supports self-respect and agency.
• Power imbalances must be recognised and compensated for.
• Exposure carries permanent risks if mishandled.
• Exploitation occurs when one side controls the rules and the environment.
• Children and vulnerable people require additional protection.
• Monetisation never negates safeguards; it makes them more essential.

These norms evolved slowly but are now deeply rooted in how society understands intimacy. Humans instinctively know that unprotected exposure leads to harm. Consent, boundaries, and safeguards exist to prevent that harm.

Data Exposes Intimacy

The same principles apply to personal data, yet they are almost absent from the digital environment. The pivot is simple: data exposes who a person is—how they behave, what they believe, and what can be predicted about them. It reveals vulnerabilities, impulses, and emotional patterns. It can be recombined, reinterpreted, and sold. In many ways, it is more intimate than the physical body, because its exposure is permanent, scalable, and transferable.

The same principles apply to personal data, yet they are almost entirely absent from the digital environment. The pivot is straightforward. Data is intimate because it exposes who a person is, how they behave, what they believe, how they decide, and what can be predicted about them. It reveals vulnerabilities, routines, impulses, and weaknesses. It can be cross-linked, reinterpreted, and used to manipulate outcomes. In many respects, it is more intimate than physical exposure because its consequences are permanent, scalable, and transferable.

The Digital Asymmetry

Here the structural parallel becomes impossible to ignore. The digital economy treats the exposure of personal data in ways that would be intolerable in any physical or intimate domain. Consent is won through obscurity, not clarity. Boundaries are dictated by those with power, not by individuals. Risk is shifted to users, who trade irreversible exposure for modest convenience. Platforms change terms unilaterally, foster dependency, and escape accountability. The ecosystem depends on asymmetry: one side understands the consequences; the other cannot.

Monetisation Without Protection

Consider systems of regulated sex work. Even when participation is voluntary, safeguards exist precisely because consent alone cannot neutralise structural vulnerability. Children receive protection for the same reason: some exposures demand external limits. These examples illustrate a broader truth—voluntary participation never absolves systemic responsibility. Rights must shape the conditions of exposure.

Data monetisation, by contrast, occurs in a regime of near-total user helplessness. Exiting is costly; protection is procedural rather than substantive. The value extracted from personal data dwarfs anything returned to the individual. This imbalance isn’t accidental—it is the business model. Platforms profit from endless exposure while outsourcing all risk to the least empowered participant.

The Normalisation of Dependency

People now treat data with a casualness they would never apply to any other intimate aspect of life. They do so because the system rewards ignorance and normalises dependency, distracting users with entertainment and minor convenience. Yet the outcomes are long-term, irreversible, and monetised in ways few grasp. Those who do understand often double down on exploitation, widening the gap between risk and protection. This imbalance cannot endure indefinitely.

Reclaiming Intimacy: Privacy Before Profit

For privacy to mean anything in a digital society, it must override monetisation. Rights must precede extraction. Exposure cannot be commercialised until conditions for safe participation exist. This is not a moral plea but a structural necessity—the same reasoning that governs intimacy. Where vulnerability and asymmetry exist, safeguards must come first.

This reframing is not alarmist. It is a call for alignment. Personal data deserves the same gravity we already apply to other realms of exposure and risk. Once that truth is accepted, the conversation naturally shifts—from convenience and trade-offs to rights, boundaries, and the foundations of a fair digital society.