What is privacy

Allen defines privacy in terms of access and excludes from her definition protection of individual autonomous choice from governmental interference, which she terms a form of liberty. Ultimately she believes interference with decisions involving procreation and sexuality raise the same moral concerns as other privacy intrusions, offending the values of personhood. The Supreme Court now claims Whalen v. Following this sort of reasoning, a number of theorists defend the view that privacy has broad scope, inclusive of the multiple types of privacy issues described by the Court, even though there is no simple definition of privacy.

Most of these theorists explore the links between the types of privacy interests and the similarity of reasons for valuing each. Some stress that privacy is necessary for one to develop a concept of self as a purposeful, self determining agent.

Privacy enables control over personal information as well as control over our bodies and personal choices for our concept of self Kupfer, Privacy provides protection against overreaching social control by others through their access to information or their control over decision making Schoeman, These three interests are related because in each of the three contexts threats of information leaks, threats of control over our bodies, and threats to our power to make our own choices about our lifestyles and activities all make us vulnerable and fearful that we are being scrutinized, pressured or taken advantage of by others.

Privacy has moral value because it shields us in all three contexts by providing certain freedom and independence — freedom from scrutiny, prejudice, pressure to conform, exploitation, and the judgment of others.

Yet it has been difficult for philosophers to provide clear guidelines on the positive side of understanding just what privacy protects and why it is important. There has been consensus that the significance of privacy is almost always justified for the individual interests it protects: personal information, personal spaces, and personal choices, protection of freedom and autonomy in a liberal democratic society.

Allen, ; Moore, ; Reiman ; Roessler, Schoeman eloquently defended the importance of privacy for protection of self-expression and social freedom.

More recent literature has extended this view and has focused on the value of privacy not merely for the individual interests it protects, but also for its irreducibly social value. Concerns over the accessibility and retention of electronic communications and the expansion of camera surveillance have led commentators to focus attention on loss of individual privacy as well as privacy protection with respect to the state and society Reiman, ; Solove, ; Nissenbaum, Privacy is a common value in that all individuals value some degree of privacy and have some common perceptions about privacy.

Privacy is also a public value in that it has value not just to the individual as an individual or to all individuals in common but also to the democratic political system. Instead, privacy protects the individual because of the benefits it confers on society. Solove believes privacy fosters and encourages the moral autonomy of citizens, a central requirement of governance in a democracy. One way of understanding these comments, that privacy not only has intrinsic and extrinsic value to individuals but also has instrumental value to society, is to recognize that these views develop from the earlier philosophical writings Fried ; Rachels, ; Schoeman; , on the value of privacy in that it heightens respect for individual autonomy in decision-making for self-development and individual integrity and human dignity, but also enhances the value of privacy in various social roles and relationships that contribute to a functioning society.

According to this contemporary scholarship, privacy norms help regulate social relationships such as intimate relations, family relationships, professional relationships including those between a physician and a patient, a lawyer or accountant and a client, a teacher and a student, and so on.

Thus privacy enhances social interaction on a variety of levels. Schoeman points out that the question of whether or not privacy is culturally relative can be interpreted in two ways. One question is whether privacy is deemed valuable to all peoples or whether its value is relative to cultural differences. A second question is whether or not there are any aspects of life that are inherently private and not just conventionally so. Most writers have come to agree that while almost all cultures appear to value privacy, cultures differ in their ways of seeking and obtaining privacy, and probably do differ in the level they value privacy Westin, ; Rachels, Allen and Moore are especially sensitive to the ways obligations from different cultures affect perceptions of privacy.

There has been far less agreement on the second question. Thus it may well be that one of the difficulties in defining the realm of the private is that privacy is a notion that is strongly culturally relative, contingent on such factors as economics as well as technology available in a given cultural domain. The earliest arguments by Warren and Brandeis for explicit recognition of privacy protection in law were in large part motivated by expanding communication technology such as the development of widely distributed newspapers and multiply printed reproductions of photographs.

Similarly Fourth Amendment protection against search and seizure was extended later in the twentieth century to cover telephone wiretaps and electronic surveillance. It is clear that many people still view privacy is a valuable interest and realize it is now threatened more than ever by technological advances. There are massive databases and Internet records of information about individual financial and credit history, medical records, purchases and telephone calls, for example, and most people do not know what information is stored about them or who has access to it.

The ability for others to access and link the databases, with few controls on how they use, share, or exploit the information, makes individual control over information about oneself more difficult than ever before. There are numerous other cases of the clash between privacy and technology. Consider the following new technologies. Caller ID, originally designed to protect people from unwanted calls from harassers, telemarketers, etc.

There is widespread mandatory and random drug testing of employees and others, and the Supreme Court has said policies requiring all middle and high school students to consent to drug testing in order to participate in extracurricular activities does not violate the Fourth Amendment, although the Court has disallowed mandatory drug tests on pregnant women for use by police. It had seemed that heat sensors aimed at and through walls to detect such things as growing marijuana would be acceptable.

However in in Kyllo v. Surveillance photos are commonly taken of those using Fast Lane, resulting in tickets mailed to speeding offenders, and similar photos are now taken at red lights in San Diego and elsewhere, leading to surprise tickets.

Face scanning in Tampa, at casinos, and at large sporting events such as the Super Bowl, matches those photos with database records of felons, resulting in the capture of multiple offenders on the loose but also posing privacy issues for other innocents photographed without their knowledge.

Some rental car drivers are now tracked by Global Positioning System GPS satellites, enabling car rental companies, not police, to levy stiff fines for speeding. Immigration officials in Australia are considering proposals to tag asylum seekers with electronic trackers before sending them into the community to await hearings. The media has recently uncovered an FBI Web surveillance system called Carnivore, that appears to sample the communications of as many Internet users as it chooses, not just suspects.

Echelon is a covert global satellite network said to have the ability to intercept all phone, fax, and e-mail messages in the world, and may have up to 20 international listening posts. Airline passengers will soon be able to go through customs with a two second biometric scan that confirms identity by mapping the iris of the eye, and U.

There is a proliferation of biometric identification using faces, eyes, fingerprints, and other body parts for identifying specific individuals, and the technology for matching the information with other databases is advancing quickly. Anton Alterman discusses various privacy and ethical issues arising from expanding use of biometric identification.

For more on some of the other issues noted above, see other articles in Ethics and Information Technology 5, 3 For some cases in the clash between privacy and advancing technologies, it is possible to make a compelling argument for overriding the privacy intrusions. Drug and alcohol tests for airline pilots on the job seem completely justifiable in the name of public safety, for example.

With the development of new and more sophisticated technology, however, recent work on privacy is examining the ways in which respect for privacy can be balanced with justifiable uses of emerging technology Agre and Rotenberg, ; Austin, ; Brin, ; Etzioni, , and Ethics and Information Technology , 6, 1, Daniel Solove takes seriously the criticism that privacy suffers from an embarrassment of meanings and the concern that new technologies have given rise to a panoply of new privacy harms.

He then endeavors to guide the law toward a more coherent understanding of privacy, by developing a taxonomy to identify a wide range of privacy problems comprehensively and completely. Moore argues that privacy claims should carry more weight when in conflict with other social values and interests. For example, he defends the view that employee agreements that undermine employee privacy should be viewed with suspicion, and he argues that laws and legislation prohibiting the genetic modification of humans will unjustifiably trample individual privacy rights Moore, He also defends the view that free speech and expression should not be viewed as more important than privacy Moore, Clearly, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, , the literature on privacy increasingly focuses on how to balance privacy concerns with the need for public safety in an age of terrorism.

Moore argues that views which trade privacy for security typically strike the wrong balance and in many cases undermine both Moore, Revisions to the U. Some view him as a hero, others as a traitor.

Although the government needs strong powers to protect its citizens, the executive branch also needs to provide a strong voice on behalf of civil liberties and individual rights, including privacy. As writers continue to be especially concerned with privacy and technology, and how it affects all citizens, there is increasing concern with the social dimension of privacy which was first introduced at the end of section 3.

Roessler and Mokrosinska realize that technological developments have inspired a lively debate on data and privacy, because privacy is a central lens through which to view protection of individual liberty and autonomy in liberal democratic societies.

What is new is the worrisome development of privacy-invasive technologies that intrude on both individuals and society. Regan , Solove and Nissenbaum took the first steps in analyzing the social dimensions and value of privacy in a democratic society, but are now, along with others in this volume , focusing on the role of privacy in political and social practice, in law, in media and communication, in health care, and in the marketplace.

Privacy concerns are also arising in new disciplines beyond philosophy, law and political science, reaching into the health sciences, engineering, media studies, sociology and information sciences. Thus Roessler and Mokrosinska have encouraged further work on recent controversies in these different domains of social life, exploring the ways in which the emphasis on the social relevance of privacy helps try to resolve them.

They also urged contributors to address challenges that arise for the social dimension of privacy given the increasing regulation of privacy.

As another example, Roessler and Mokrosinska themselves, along with Jeroen van den Hoven, Annabelle Lever and others address genetic data, markets in personal data, and privacy as a political value, especially given the tension between the right to privacy and freedom of expression. Other papers in this cluster look at Internet surveillance and the democratic role of privacy and social media.

While posing many questions, these essays isolate the central dilemmas that arise when addressing privacy in social contexts and when groups, not merely individuals, have a stake in the regulation of privacy Roessler and Mokrosinska, Finally, a third group of essays in this volume help readers understand privacy regulations in the European Union and Canada. Anita Allen emphasizes the limitations of privacy regulations in health care, and the discrimination and disadvantages these regulations lead to for people of color and women.

Others discuss both the combination and maze of privacy regulations at the federal level in the U. For current privacy controversies in these new technical areas, there may be few concrete answers about the best way to answer particular questions arising from the clash between privacy and other important values.

As debate has expanded over privacy and advancing technology, another recent anthology has made important contributions to the literature. Moore ushers in a cogent articulation and defense of privacy even when privacy seems to conflict with other important values. For example, new technologies allowing increased data mining, re-identification of anonymized data sets, heat-sensing cameras, license-plate readers, predictive analytics and facial recognition technology can all expose information we thought was protected as private to become more public than we had ever imagined.

These technologies and others can make us worry about the moral, legal and social foundations and interrelationships between privacy, security and accountability. Security basically provides individuals with control over their lives, projects and property, and to be free from unjustified interference from other individuals, corporations and governments. At this level, privacy and security seem to go hand in hand, reinforcing each other.

However, it is important to ask when external interference is justified, leading to conflicts between privacy and security. People may have different views about when an issue of national security, for example, is strong enough to override individual or group privacy concerns.

Kenneth Einar Himma defends a strong account, arguing that classical social contract theory implies that citizens submit to state authority to gain security, a value the state is morally obligated to protect. Thus armed services, police, intelligence agencies, public health institutions and legal systems provide security for individuals and groups Moore, ch. While we can appreciate somewhat different categories of moral, social and legal accountability, just as we discuss moral, social and legal responsibility, we all understand it becomes clear that accountability can sometimes supersede privacy rights, and yet privacy rights can on other occasions override accountability in its multiple forms.

As the authors in this volume note, there is good reason to conclude that privacy, security and accountability are all morally valuable. Yet we may all wonder what the appropriate balance is between these different values when they conflict.

To describe just a few of the contributions in this volume, Anita Allen argues that individuals have an obligation to protect their own privacy Moore, ch. While that may be true, it is not at all clear that individuals can protect their own privacy in the face of national security concerns or demands for accountability. Privacy can facilitate setting aside deep disagreements in order for political engagement in a democracy to proceed.

Thus Mokrosinska proposes a strategy for mediating between privacy and free speech when they collide Moore, ch. These discussions in information technology draw readers into current debates about the boundaries between and relative values of privacy, security and accountability.

Well, it depends on who you ask. Broadly speaking, privacy is the right to be let alone, or freedom from interference or intrusion. Information privacy is the right to have some control over how your personal information is collected and used. With speed-of-light technological innovation, information privacy is becoming more complex by the minute as more data is being collected and exchanged.

As the technology gets more sophisticated indeed, invasive , so do the uses of data. And that leaves organizations facing an incredibly complex risk matrix for ensuring that personal information is protected. As a result, privacy has fast-emerged as perhaps the most significant consumer protection issue—if not citizen protection issue—in the global information economy. Not really. But they are kissing cousins. Security focuses more on protecting data from malicious attacks and the exploitation of stolen data for profit.

Privacy is now a necessity of doing business. The IAPP is where professionals, whether from multinationals or start-ups, can get the education, training and resources to make sure privacy is done right in their organizations.

What we do is provide a forum for discussion and education about privacy. Privacy Digest A roundup of US privacy news. Join the Privacy List Have ideas? Our digital fingerprints are everywhere. They tell a story of where we go, what we do, who we like or dislike, and what we think. They are created by every click we make and every file, application, and device we use.

When that data is aggregated, it can provide tremendously powerful insights about a person or community — enough to build complex and accurate personas. Online shopping is a perfect example: targeted marketing and data-driven advertising is a big business because it is successful at getting people to spend money.

It all comes back to knowing what people are doing, thinking, saying, consuming, and watching. Having access to vast amounts of private data gives advertisers the ability to craft timely and meaningful messages that pull people into desired behaviors. How about changing what people think, who they support, their political views, what should become a law, and what to believe? The use of private information has long been leveraged to promote, vilify, or persecute various religions and political parties and leaders.

In the last few decades, how global citizens receive their news has changed. The news and entertainment segments have begun to blend, often reporting facts with embellishments and opinionated stories to sway public opinions. The more private information that is known, the easier it becomes to influence, convince, cajole, or threaten people. A veil of privacy can shield both benefits and abuses. The current trend is to establish and extend privacy rights for the benefit of citizens.

This reduces digital victimization, manipulation, and exploitation by protecting sensitive data and allows for activities that promote liberty and free speech. Without laws, governments and businesses have evolved practices that leverage the power of gathering sensitive information and using it to their own advantage.

New privacy laws GDPR , CCPA are changing the landscape with many ethical companies downshifting their collection efforts to be more conservative and respectful. They are also showing flexibility in how they treat, protect, and share such data. Some governments and agencies are also reducing collection, limiting retention, or ending domestic programs that are considered invasive by citizens.

At the same time, law enforcement agencies want to retain capabilities to detect and investigate crimes, to protect the security and safety of citizens. Privacy is also misused. It is the preferred tool for those committing crimes and allows heinous acts against others to remain undetected.

It can conceal terrible acts and allow widespread coordination of fraud, abuse, and terror. The argument is made that digital backdoors , master keys, and encryption algorithms that gain access to systems and private information would assist in the lawful detection of criminal activity and in investigations to identify terrorists. The risk of control and exploitation is real.