Before
We have fought for our privacy for centuries and there are provisions for it in most modern societies where the law protects people from invasions of privacy by anyone whether it be another citizen or group or the government. Originally designed to protect us from invasion of our private property and possessions, the Internet age has meant that our privacy now extends to our private data and personal information which has made the whole issue of privacy more complex and controversial.
Privacy is one of those issues where paranoia, insecurity, and lack of trust has hijacked its good intentions to the point where not only is the privacy of law-abiding citizens unprotected, but it actually protects non-law-abiding citizens. The Internet means that all our private information is now accessible and because it is so poorly protected it is at risk both from criminals and by people in government who abuse loopholes in the law and deliberately misinterpret and take advantage of the bureaucratic red tape in legislation like the Homeland Security Act.
The truth is that we all want to eat our cake and eat it too. Most of us are dutiful law-abiding citizens and we want to be protected from others that aren't. Take for example CCTV cameras. These are ubiquitous in many parts of the world and whole cities have cameras on every corner where traffic, pedestrians, and the general public can be watched from a central facility. We take comfort in the fact that these cameras are watching for criminal or terrorist activity so that our security forces have the information they need to protect the rest of us. But we don't like the fact that we can be seen also and if we accidentally run a red light, or we overstay by 10 minutes on our parking meter, that the information could be used against us.
After
In Nutopia there is no ambiguity with privacy. Everything and everyone in Nutopia is monitored with audio, video, and other sensor equipment in all public and private places so that the movements of everyone and everything is captured at all times. All personal information such as personal photos, videos, and email messages are stored in the Central Computer Center and no data is saved in your own home or anywhere else because there is no other data storage on any device. Your initial reaction might be one of outrage and your first thoughts instantly go to imagining a video recording captured by a camera in your own bedroom, or perhaps some of those raunchy photos you took of your girlfriend. But imagine for a moment that every piece of data saved from sensors or from devices you used was stored in a secure location that no one else could access, and where only you could access your own personal and private information. If you had 100% confidence that it was that secure then logically you should not have a problem with it, but because today you would have absolutely no confidence that anything would be that secure, you would probably protest vehemently against it.
The Guardian System in Nutopia is entirely secure because it is a closed system and the only way to gain access is through an Access Device which requires a person to provide their Citizen Credentials which they can only do when their Citizen Identification Implant has been validated. Only you can see your personal information but you can give other people access to it. For example, you might give a girlfriend access to certain photos of you which she can view. If you later decide that you don't want her to see them anymore then you simply revoke her access to them.
The information gathered by sensors in Nutopia is stored in the Guardian System but no one has access to it, is monitoring it, or looking at it, unless it is requested as part of an investigation. Only then can the people involved in the investigation have access to the information and once the investigation is over then access to the information is immediately revoked.
Even though the Guardian System security means that unauthorized access to information is impossible, in Nutopia there is no financial system and people do not own property or possessions, so there is no incentive to try and steal someone else's property because they don't own any, or their private financial information because they don't have any money. There is no reason to steal anyone's private information such as photos or videos with the intent to extort, because there is nothing that can be given. All in all people in Nutopia do not worry about the privacy of their information because it is both secure and it is of no value to anyone else.
