True.
I cant and shouldnt be able to decide what others do with that kind of information. The thing is, they shouldnt be able to decide those things for me either. But its really a double edged sword.
Privacy Laws werent written with the intent of protecting Criminals from the Law, however, that can be one of the unintended consequences of such laws. Laws were intended to protect people from the abuses of others. The Hollocaust where millions of Jews were murdered for their faith may not have occured if the Germans were both respectful of a persons privacy (yeah, right), and people were more protective of that kind of information. Hindsight is always 20 20 I guess. But being Jewish is one of those examples where it isnt Right or Wrong, but due to the Difference of Opinion, has the potential to become a source of conflict.
The outright genocide of Jews is unlikely to occur again. But what may happen is the genocide of people with other types of beliefs. During World War 2, the US rounded up a lot of Japanese people for being Japanese, and stuck them in Internment Camps. There was no real crime other than being born to a Japanese heritage. Jewish and Japanese alike are both Human Beings. But what happens next time, when instead of being Jewish or Japanese as a basis for conflict, other information is used to coerce individuals? What happens if during an election, the "Wrong Candidate" is voted for? Should those people ever be rounded up?
The thing is, too many people take this personal approach to privacy. Those kinds of laws are also designed to protect a Society as a whole, not just the individual. The abuses of privacy we can see already often have political motivations being used as a reason to violate the rights of an individual, which, when done enough, determines the outcome of the society as a whole. The extreme overreach of the NSA and other spy organizations for many countries to me show a disturbing trend. Countries dont have any respect for the individual. If there are people they feel need to be observed, there have long existed legal methods for monitoring specific individuals. Those methods are done with the due process of law. Get a warrant. If they were to do that, I'd have much less of an issue with what goes on.
Say a mining company places an order for a bunch of explosives. Well, those explosives are probably going to be used for purpose of mining. Not very suspicious. But if a postal worker comes along and tries to place an order for a volume of explosives that exceeds what a mining company would use, thats flat out suspicious, probable cause, and a valid reason to issue a warrant and monitor that individual. Paying for a candy bar in cash at a convenience store to me is not a valid reason.
People need privacy in order to grow in whatever direction they see fit. When others know everything, what they read, what they say, what they learn, what they aspire to be, they can change that direction. When a society is directed to grow in the direction that is demanded by others, you end up with a society that does not grow itself naturally, and often only grows in the direction that benefits by those that dictate that direction. The ability to change the direction of a society is dependant on the ability to monitor every individual. Thus, people need to stop thinking about privacy only in regards to themselves, but how it will affect how they are permitted to communicate and interact with everyone else.
When an individual is under constant surveillance, that individual is no longer free. When an entire society is under constant and total surveillance, that society can no longer be considered "democratic" in any way shape or form.