Why is privacy described as a precondition for democracy, not just a personal preference?

Because privacy protects against abuse of power — and a sphere free from surveillance is a precondition for a liberal-democratic society to function and for personal wellbeing.

The argument elevates privacy from a comfort to a structural necessity. Without a protected private sphere, power can monitor and therefore dominate; surveillance, Budelacci notes, is itself "an act of domination." AI accelerates the erosion of privacy — via facial recognition, camera recording, movement data, touchscreens, VR/AR stations and mass data storage — so the threat grows precisely as the tools grow.

He also names a contradiction in our own behaviour: we are only selectively critical about our data, readily trading privacy away for convenience while claiming to value it. So defending privacy is partly a matter of self-honesty, not just of resisting external actors.