Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differs between cultures and individuals, but shares basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed in the public realm. When something is private to a person, it usually means there is something within them that is considered inherently special or personally sensitive. The degree to which private information is exposed therefore depends on how the public will receive this information, which differs between places and over time. Privacy can be seen as an aspect of security — one in which trade-offs between the interests of one group and another can become particularly clear.

The right against unsanctioned invasion of privacy by the government, corporations or individuals is part of many countries' privacy laws, and in some cases, constitutions. Almost all countries have laws which in some way limit privacy; an example of this would be law concerning taxation, which normally require the sharing of information about personal income or earnings. In some countries individual privacy may conflict with freedom of speech laws and some laws may require public disclosure of information which would be considered private in other countries and cultures.

Privacy may be voluntarily sacrificed, normally in exchange for perceived benefits and very often with specific dangers and losses, although this is a very strategic view of human relationships. Academics who are economists, evolutionary theorists, and research psychologists describe revealing privacy as a 'voluntary sacrifice', where sweepstakes or competitions are involved. In the business world, a person may give personal details (often for advertising purposes) in order to enter a gamble of winning a prize. Information which is voluntarily shared and is later stolen or misused can lead to identity theft.

Privacy and security trade-offs

It is disputed whether privacy and security is in conflict, requiring trade-offs between the two, or if privacy can enhance security. For the collection of taxes it is in the interests of government if one's earnings and income are well known. On the other hand, that same information may be used to select someone or his family as a good target for kidnapping. In these narrow terms, one group's interest is to keep the information private. One of the goals of computer security is confidentiality. Identity theft, for example, is a security problem that is created from a lack of privacy or failure of confidentiality.

Privacy can be defined as security from the point of view of one stakeholder. This even makes sense in multi-stakeholder transactions or interactions as every stakeholder still has his own security closest at heart even if the security interests of others are taken into account. There are no inherent need to assume a trade off as the use of anonymous proofs such as blinded certificates can be used to certify both positive (e.g. citizenship) and negative (e.g. non on a fugitive list) assertions about the identity in question, conditional revocation of pseudonymity (in case of abuse of pseudonymity) and a range of other mechanisms can be used as catalysts to eliminate the trade-offs and even improve security of several stakeholders simultaneously.

An example of a positive synergy between privacy and the security of others is in combating identity theft. If you cannot use credentials in another context, then you cannot abuse this knowledge to commit identity theft elsewhere. If you do no accept credentials used elsewhere, you isolate risks of identity theft to keys that are in actual control of the individual. As such Identity theft can be seen as a consequence of too much identification or too little privacy.

Privacy can also have free speech ramifications. In some countries privacy has been used as a tool to suppress free speech. One person's speech can sometimes be considered a violation of another person's privacy. In various cases the US Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment trumps privacy. In Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001) Docket Number: 99-1687, US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that someone cannot be held liable in court for publishing or broadcasting intercepted contents of information, as long as that information is of public concern. Conversely, the Constitutional right to privacy is built in part on the First Amendment.

Census data is another area where such trade-offs become apparent. Accurate data are useful for planning future services (whether commercial or public sector); on the other hand, almost all census data are released only in a way which does not allow identification of specific individuals. Based on US Code Title 13, the Census Bureau is prohibited by law to share its information or data on individuals who respond to a Census, or survey to anyone. Often this is done by anonymizing the data, and/or aggregating data from smaller geographic regions into larger ones. Such areas can be Zip codes, school district boundaries, or simply several blocks grouped into larger areas known as Census Tracts. This aggregated data from Census tracts may include answers from respondents from large geographic tracts of land to eliminate the possibility of identification of individuals, or smaller groups of people. The result of doing this does not directly reduce the accuracy of data, however by aggregating the data to include many individuals' data in larger geographic zones, the granularity of data is lost. This aggregation of data over larger geographic areas prevents an individual's identification, income, or other personally identifiable data to become public knowledge. It protects the privacy of individuals, but allows planners, and state, local, and federal government officials to adequately make determinations on how funds need to be distributed based on the "general" population of the tract, or area.

On the other hand some trade-offs may be regarded as false by some observers. Identity card systems, which may reduce privacy, are often presented as a method of increasing security. However, Bruce Schneier and others have argued that these systems may reduce security.

Reasons for not maintaining privacy

It has been reasoned that privacy discourages information sharing between individuals which in turn can lead to mistrust and intolerance amongst people and perpetuate false information. If information can be shared widely, then facts can generally be verified through many different sources and there are less chances of inaccuracies. It has also been reasoned that privacy can perpetuate stigma and intolerance. The reasoning behind this is that restrictions on information about people can inhibit and discourage collection and finding of data that is required for an accurate analysis and discussion on the causes and root of the stigma and intolerance. Philosophers often ask how people can learn to accept each other if they cannot know about each other.

Issues have also been raised that privacy can encourage criminal activity as it makes it easier for criminals to hide their unlawful activities.

More pragmatically, privacy sometimes is not maintained because there is a benefit provided by disclosure. For example, a potential employer is given a résumé/CV in order to evaluate someone's appropriateness for employment. Or, contact information, e-mail addresses most often, are provided in exchange for access to some useful information, like a "white paper".

Court Cases

Canada

In Erwin Eastmond v. Canadian Pacific Railway & Privacy Commissioner of Canada (June 11, 2004) The Court found that CP could collect Eastmond's personal information without his knowledge or consent because it benefited from the exemption in paragraph 7(1)(b) of PIPEDA, which provides that personal information can be collected without consent if "it is reasonable to expect that the collection with the knowledge or consent of the individual would compromise the availability or the accuracy of the information and the collection is reasonable for purposes related to investigating a breach of an agreement".

United States

In a unanimous ruling justices at the Supreme Court of New Hampshire ruled: "A generalized concern for personal privacy is insufficient to meet the state's burden of demonstrating the existence of a sufficiently compelling reason to prevent public access." The state Supreme Court ruled that financial information people disclose in divorce cases is not entitled to sweeping privacy protections. The court said the right of access to court proceedings and records predates both the state and federal constitutions. The decision relied heavily on the New Hampshire Constitution, which says power comes from the people. "To that end, the public's right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted," the Constitution says. The Associated Press v. New Hampshire.

In Davis v. Freedom of Information Commission, 259 Conn. 45 (2001) the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the Drivers Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) does not apply to other government agencies who receive personal information from the State Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in the course of their normal government functions. Therefore, records compiled by the office of the tax assessor, which were based on state motor vehicle records, were publicly accessible.

Excerpt of a ruling by Judge Kenneth Johnson, Indianapolis, Indiana, "The great public interest in the reporting, investigation and prosecution of child abuse trumps even the patient's interest in privileged communication with her physicians because, in the end, both the patient and the state are benefited by the disclosure," Johnson wrote.

In Las Vegas Review v. Board of County Commissioners, August 18, 2000, Nevada's highest court ruled that records showing the telephone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls on publicly owned cellular telephones are not confidential or private.

Privacy in the workplace

European workplace privacy

The EU Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data limits and regulates the collection of personal information on individuals, including workers. Firms that monitor employees' use of e-mail, the internet or phones as part of their business practice, and do not tell employees or have not obtained employee consent to do so, can in most cases be sued under Article 8 the European Convention on Human Rights which provides for the right to respect for his private and family life. On the other hand, although EU law is clear that e-mail interception is illegal, the law is not totally clear as to whether companies may prohibit employees from sending private e-mails.

U.S. workplace privacy

In the United States, the situation is quite different. In 2005 for example, a survey of more than 500 U.S. companies found that over half had disciplined and about one in four employers had terminated (fired) an employee for "inappropriate" use of the internet, such as sending an inappropriate e-mail message to a client or supervisor, neglecting work while chatting with friends, or viewing pornography during work hours.[1]

The tools that are used for this surveillance are often caching proxy servers that are also used for web-monitoring.

Privacy laws

Main article: Civil liberties

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in article 12, states:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Countries such as France protect privacy explicitly in their constitution (France's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen), while the Supreme Court of the United States has found that the U.S. constitution contains "penumbras" that implicitly grant a right to privacy against government intrusion, for example in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). Other countries without constitutional privacy protections have laws protecting privacy, such as the United Kingdom's Data Protection Act 1998 or Australia's Privacy Act 1988. The European Union requires all member states to legislate to ensure that citizens have a right to privacy, through directives such as Directive 95/46.

If the privacy of an individual is breached, the individual may bring a lawsuit asking for monetary damages. However, in the United Kingdom, some recent cases involving celebrities such as David Beckham, have resulted in defeat as the information has been determined in the courts to be in the public interest. In the United States, the right of freedom of speech granted in the First Amendment have limited the effects of lawsuits for breach of privacy.

Organisations such as Privacy International, a London-based non-governmental organisation formed in 1990, exist as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations. On the flip side organizations such as ARTICLE 19 a UK based non-governmental organization exist as a watchdog on governments using privacy as a tool for censorship and restrictions on free speech.

In the United States, Federal law regulating communications carriers prohibits the disclosure of customer phone records. Breaches of this law in the private sector were found to be common, with sales of call detail information becoming the subject of Congressional inquiry. More recently, it has been revealed that the United States National Security Agency has been warehousing the call detail information of billions of individual phone calls for pattern analysis. Whether this was done in violation of law or through powers granted by Congress as part of the broader "War on Terrorism" is the subject of debate.

Bodies and organizations

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
• Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
• Privacy International
• International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP)

See also

• Beacon (Facebook)
• Big Brother Awards
• Caller ID spoofing
• Civil liberties
• Data privacy
• Data retention
• Financial privacy
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
• Griswold v. Connecticut
• Hepting vs. AT&T (a 2006 lawsuit in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation alleges AT&T allowed the NSA to tap the entirety of its clients' internet and Voice over IP communications)
• Informational Self-Determination
• Mass surveillance
• Personality rights
• Printer identification encoding
• Privacy enhancing technologies
• Psychology of privacy
• RFID (radio frequency identification)
• The Transparent Society, a non-fiction book by David Brin, foreseeing an erosion of the right to privacy in the future and why that might not be such a bad thing.
• Secure communication
• Vehicular communication systems

Further reading

• Dennis Bailey, Open Society Paradox: Why The Twenty-first Century Calls For More Openness--not Less, Brasseys Inc (November, 2004), hardcover, 224 pages, ISBN 1-57488-916-8
• Judith Wagner DeCew, 1997, In Pursuit of Privacy: Law, Ethics, and the Rise of Technology, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
• Whitefield Diffie and Susan Landau, 2007, Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, The MIT Press, ISBN 978-0-262-04240-6
• Ruth Gavison, "Privacy and the Limits of the Law," in Michael J. Gorr and Sterling Harwood, eds., Crime and Punishment: Philosophic Explorations (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2000, formerly Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1996), paperback, 552 pages, pp. 46-68.
• Raymond Geuss, 2003, "Public Goods, Private Goods," Princeton: Princeton University Press
• Sven Ove Hansson and Elin Palm, eds., The Ethics of Workplace Privacy (SALTSA Reports, Work and Society Series nr 50), (Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang), 2005, paperback, 186 pages, ISBN 90-5201-293-8.
• Robert O Harrow, No Place To Hide: Behind The Scenes Of Our Emerging Surveillance Society, Free Press or Simon and Schuster (January, 2005), hardcover, 304 pages, ISBN 0-7432-5480-5
• Adam D. Moore, 2003, “Privacy: Its Meaning and Value” American Philosophical Quarterly 40: 215-227
• William Parent, 1983, “Privacy, Morality and the Law”, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12: 269-88
• K. A. Taipale, "Technology, Security and Privacy: The Fear of Frankenstein, the Mythology of Privacy, and the Lessons of King Ludd," 7 Yale J. L. & Tech. 123 ; 9 Intl. J. Comm. L. & Pol'y 8 (Dec. 2004) (arguing for incorporating privacy protecting features in the construction of information systems through value sensitive design).
• Judith Jarvis Thomson, "The Right to Privacy," in Michael J. Gorr and Sterling Harwood, eds., Crime and Punishment: Philosophic Explorations (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2000, formerly Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1995), 552 pages, pp. 34-46.

• Perry Metzger (1993) A Parable. http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1993/04/msg00559.html
• David H. Holtzman, Privacy Lost: How Technology Is Endangering Your Privacy, Jossey-Bass (September, 2006), hardcover, 278 pages, ISBN 0-7879-8511-2
• A. Westin, 1967, Privacy and Freedom, New York: Atheneum
• Adams, Helen. "Privacy in the 21st Century". Libraries Unlimited, 2005.

External links

• Privacy Institute
• Tracks current news regarding developments as we speed towards a Big Brother society
• Generally Accepted Privacy Principles
• Privacy Commission Privacy Watch Review (and other resources)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation digital rights NGO
• Electronic Privacy Information Center a public interest research center
• Privacy International UK-based International privacy NGO
• Privacy Spot privacy law blog
• The Privacy Place Research Center
• World Privacy Forum U.S. consumer education group
• OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy describe principles behind many contemporary privacy laws
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Data Protection in the European Union, from the Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security
• Genetic privacy and the law
• European data protection and privacy law
• Congress Erodes Privacy by Rep. Ron Paul, Ph.D.
• Proposal for a Privacy Protection Guideline on Secret Personal Data Gathering and Transborder Flows of Such Data in the Fight against Terrorism and Serious Crime by Marcel Stuessi
• Opt-Out of Personally Identifiable Information Sharing Sample letter from a non-profit consumer group to opt-out of information sharing by financial institutions under the Financial Services Modernization Act.
• Fundamentals of Field Surveillance