What is Privacy?
Over the past couple of years, “privacy” has received widespread media coverage. Some people say that if one does not have anything to hide, then there is no need of privacy. A lot has been written about the amount and kind of data collected by corporations. It is said that there is no need to worry as only metadata is collected and not the data itself. What it really means is that, users have lower level of protection by law as compared to a situation where data is being collected. In an earlier article here I have written how metadata can sometimes provide more information than the data itself. But what is “privacy”?
The first legal article on privacy titled “The Right to Privacy” was published in 1890 by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis. In this article they discuss privacy as the “right to be let alone”. They also mention “Numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that ‘what is whispered in the closer shall be proclaimed from the house tops.’” In the same year William James addressed the idea of being able to present ourselves to different people by withholding private information.
Another way of looking at privacy is by using the metaphor used by Erving Goffman in his book “The Presentation of self in Everyday Life”. He writes that society is a stage in which we are actors. But as with most stages, there is a backstage, an area which is invisible to the public, where we do things not to be presented to the public. Privacy plays the role of allowing us to prepare for the presentation before going on to the stage.
Stephen B. Wicker mentions that privacy could be thought in terms of observability and controllability in control theory. Controllability denotes acquiring enough information so that the system can be driven to the desired state. An example would be personalized advertisement. If the advertiser has enough information about the person, then the advertisements viewed by the person would be suited to the needs and the advertiser would reap benefits.
In 2009, Helen Nissenbaum wrote a book “Privacy in Context” in which she introduces the idea of contextual integrity. She maintains that we control the personal information we want to hold by having a boundary. In addition she uses the metaphor of a zone of seclusion, in which the control is handled differently depending on the context and the person’s perception of solitude. This includes that the person is able to exercise various thoughts without worrying of censure.
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