Nothing to hide argument
argument that one doesn't need privacy unless someone is doing something wrong
The "nothing to hide" argument is a logical fallacy which states that an individual has no reason to fear or oppose surveillance or breach of privacy, unless they are afraid they will uncover their own wrongdoing. This argument is often used to claim that one should not worry about government surveillance as long as they have "nothing to hide".
History
An early instance of this argument was referenced by Henry James in his 1888 novel, The Reverberator:
If these people had done bad things they ought to be ashamed of themselves and he couldn't pity them, and if they hadn't done them there was no need of making such a rumpus about other people knowing.
Upton Sinclair also referenced a similar argument in his book The Profits of Religion, published in 1917 :
Not merely was my own mail opened, but the mail of all my relatives and friends — people residing in places as far apart as California and Florida. I recall the bland smile of a government official to whom I complained about this matter: "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear." My answer was that a study of many labor cases had taught me the methods of the agent provocateur. He is quite willing to take real evidence if he can find it; but if not, he has familiarized himself with the affairs of his victim, and can make evidence which will be convincing when exploited by the yellow press.
The motto "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" has been used in defense of the closed-circuit television program practiced in the United Kingdom.
Usage
This argument is commonly used in discussions regarding privacy. Legal scholar Geoffrey Stone said that the use of the argument is "all-too-common". Bruce Schneier, a data security expert and cryptographer, described it as the "most common retort against privacy advocates." Colin J. Bennett, author of The Privacy Advocates, said that an advocate of privacy often "has to constantly refute" the argument.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Nothing to hide argument” is argument that one doesn't need privacy unless someone is doing something wrong. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Nothing, hide and argument, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “argument that one doesn't need privacy unless someone is doing something wrong” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15627872. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1888 and 1917.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nothing to hide argument” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.