Privacy
Encyclopedia
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity
, the wish to remain unnoticed or unidentified 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 partially intersects security
, including for instance the concepts of appropriate use, as well as protection, of information.
The right not to be subjected to unsanctioned invasion of privacy by the government
, corporation
s or individual
s is part of many countries' privacy laws, and in some cases, constitution
s. 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', for instance by willing participants in sweepstakes or competitions. In the business world, a person may volunteer personal details (often for advertising
purposes) in order to gamble on winning a prize. Personal information which is voluntarily shared but subsequently stolen or misused can lead to identity theft
.
Privacy, as the term is generally understood in the West, is not a universal concept and remained virtually unknown in some cultures until recent times. Most cultures, however, recognize the ability of individuals to withhold certain parts of their personal information from wider society - a figleaf over the genitals being an ancient example.
The word "privacy" is sometimes regarded as untranslatable
by linguists. Many languages lack a specific word for "privacy". Such languages either use a complex description to translate the term (such as Russian combine meaning of уединение - solitude, секретность - secrecy, and частная жизнь - private life) or borrow English "privacy" (as Indonesian Privasi or Italian la privacy).
.
This would include such concerns as:
An example of the legal basis for the right to physical privacy is the US Fourth Amendment
which guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures",. Most countries have laws regarding trespassing and property rights also determine the right of physical privacy.
Physical privacy may be a matter of cultural sensitivity, personal dignity, and/or shyness. There may also be concerns about safety, if for example one is wary of becoming the victim of crime or stalking
. Civil inattention
is a process whereby individuals are able to maintain their privacy within a crowd.
Various types of personal information are often associated with privacy concerns. For various reasons, individuals may object to personal information such as their religion, sexual orientation, political affiliations, or personal activities being revealed, perhaps to avoid discrimination
, personal embarrassment, or damage to their professional reputations.
Financial privacy
, in which information about a person's financial transactions is guarded, is important for the avoidance of fraud
including identity theft
. Information about a person's purchases, for instance, can reveal a great deal about their preferences, places they have visited, their contacts, products (such as medications) they use, their activities and habits etc.
Internet privacy
is the ability to determine what information one reveals or withholds about oneself over the Internet, who has access to such information, and for what purposes one's information may or may not be used. For example, web users may be concerned to discover that many of the web sites which they visit collect, store, and possibly share personally identifiable information
about them. Similarly, Internet email users generally consider their emails to be private and hence would be concerned if their email
was being accessed, read, stored or forwarded by third parties without their consent. Tools used to protect privacy on the Internet include encryption tools and anonymizing services like I2P
and Tor
.
Medical privacy
allows a person to withhold their medical records and other information from others, perhaps because of fears that it might affect their insurance coverage or employment, or to avoid the embarrassment caused by revealing medical conditions or treatments. Medical information could also reveal other aspects of one's personal life, such as sexual preferences or proclivity. A right to sexual privacy enables individuals to acquire and use contraceptives
without family, community or legal sanctions.
Political privacy
has been a concern since voting system
s emerged in ancient times. The secret ballot
helps to ensure that voters cannot be coerced into voting in certain ways, since they can allocate their vote as they wish in the privacy and security of the voting booth while maintaining the anonymity of the vote. Secret ballots are nearly universal in modern democracy
, and considered a basic right of citizenship
, despite the difficulties that they cause (for example the inability to trace votes back to the corresponding voters increases the risk of someone stuffing additional fraudulent votes into the system: additional security controls are needed to minimize such risks).
practices and controls in order to prevent this. Organizations may seek legal protection for their secrets. For example, a government administration may be able to invoke executive privilege
or declares certain information to be classified
, or a corporation might attempt to protect valuable proprietary information as trade secret
s..
or the Internet
, the increased ability to share information can lead to new ways in which privacy can be breached. It is generally agreed that the first publication advocating privacy in the United States
was the article by Samuel Warren
and Louis Brandeis
, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harvard L.R. 193 (1890), that was written largely in response to the increase in newspapers and photographs made possible by printing technologies.
New technologies can also create new ways to gather private information. For example, in the U.S. it was thought that heat sensors intended to be used to find marijuana growing operations would be acceptable. However in 2001 in Kyllo v. United States
(533 U.S. 27) it was decided that the use of thermal imaging devices that can reveal previously unknown information without a warrant does indeed constitute a violation of privacy.
Generally the increased ability to gather and send information has had negative implications for retaining privacy. As large scale information systems
become more common, there is so much information stored in many databases worldwide that an individual has no practical means of knowing of or controlling all of the information about themselves that others may have hold or access. Such information could potentially be sold to others for profit and/or be used for purposes not known to or sanctioned by the individual concerned. The concept of information privacy has become more significant as more systems controlling more information appear. Also the consequences of privacy violations can be more severe. Privacy law
in many countries has had to adapt to changes in technology in order to address these issues and, to some extent, maintain privacy rights. But the existing global privacy rights framework has also been criticized as incoherent and inefficient. Proposals such as the APEC Privacy Framework have emerged which set out to provide the first comprehensive legal framework on the issue of global data privacy.
This currently has an effect on employment. Microsoft reports that 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals now do online research about candidates, often using information provided by search engines, social-networking sites, photo/video-sharing sites, personal web sites and blogs, and Twitter. They also report that 70 percent of U.S. recruiters have rejected candidates based on internet information. This has created a need by many to control various online privacy settings in addition to controlling their online reputations, both of which have led to legal suits against various sites and employers.
The ability to do online inquiries about individuals has expanded dramatically over the last decade. Facebook
for example, as of July 2010, was the largest social-networking site, with nearly 500 million members, or 22 percent of all Internet users, who upload over 25 billion pieces of content each month. Twitter
has more than 100 million registered users. The Library of Congress
recently announced that it will be acquiring — and permanently storing — the entire archive of public Twitter posts since 2006, reports Rosen.
According to some experts, many commonly used communication devices may be mapping every move of their users. Senator Al Franken
has noted the seriousness of iPhones and iPads having the ability to record and store users locations in unencrypted files, although Apple denied doing so.
Andrew Grove
, co-founder and former CEO of Intel Corporation
, offered his thoughts on internet privacy in an interview in 2000:
and Louis D. Brandeis wrote that privacy is the "right to be let alone" (Warren & Brandeis, 1890) focuses on protecting individuals. This citation was a response to recent technological developments, such as photography, and sensationalist journalism, also known as yellow journalism
. Warren and Brandeis declared that information which was previously hidden and private could now be "shouted from the rooftops."
Privacy rights are inherently intertwined with information technology. In his widely cited dissenting opinion
in Olmstead v. United States
(1928), Brandeis relied on thoughts he developed in his Harvard Law Review article in 1890. But in his dissent, he now changed the focus whereby he urged making personal privacy matters more relevant to constitutional law
, going so far as saying "the government [was] identified . . . as a potential privacy invader." He writes, "Discovery and invention have made it possible for the Government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet." At that time, telephones were often community assets, with shared party lines and the potentially nosey human operators. By the time of Katz, in 1967, telephones had become personal devices with lines not shared across homes and switching was electro-mechanical. In the 1970s, new computing and recording technologies began to raise concerns about privacy, resulting in the Fair Information Practice Principles.
, have attempted, but failed, to find a "common ground" between the leading kinds of privacy cases in the court system, at least to formulate a definition. One law school treatise from Israel, however, on the subject of "privacy in the digital environment," suggests that the "right to privacy should be seen as an independent right that deserves legal protection in itself." It has therefore proposed a working definition for a "right to privacy":
believes that new technologies alter the balance between privacy and disclosure, and that privacy rights may limit government surveillance to protect democratic processes. Westin defines privacy as "the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others". Westin describes four states of privacy: solitude, intimacy, anonymity, reserve. These states must balance participation against norms:
Under liberal democratic systems, privacy creates a space separate from political life, and allows personal autonomy, while ensuring democratic freedoms of association and expression.
David Flaherty believes networked computer databases pose threats to privacy. He develops 'data protection' as an aspect of privacy, which involves "the collection, use, and dissemination of personal information". This concept forms the foundation for fair information practices used by governments globally. Flaherty forwards an idea of privacy as information control, "[i]ndividuals want to be left alone and to exercise some control over how information about them is used".
Richard Posner and Lawrence Lessig focus on the economic aspects of personal information control. Posner criticizes privacy for concealing information, which reduces market efficiency. For Posner, employment is selling oneself in the labour market, which he believes is like selling a product. Any 'defect' in the 'product' that is not reported is fraud. For Lessig, privacy breaches online can be regulated through code and law. Lessig claims "the protection of privacy would be stronger if people conceived of the right as a property right", and that "individuals should be able to control information about themselves". Economic approaches to privacy make communal conceptions of privacy difficult to maintain.
, whose social value is an essential component in the functioning of democratic societies. Amitai Etzioni
suggests a communitarian
approach to privacy. This requires a shared moral culture for establishing social order. Etzioni believes that "[p]rivacy is merely one good among many others", and that technological effects depend on community accountability and oversight (ibid). He claims that privacy laws only increase government surveillance.
Priscilla Regan believes that individual concepts of privacy have failed philosophically and in policy. She supports a social value of privacy with three dimensions: shared perceptions, public values, and collective
components. Shared ideas about privacy allows freedom of conscience and diversity in thought. Public values guarantee democratic participation, including freedoms of speech and association, and limits government power. Collective elements describe privacy as collective good that cannot be divided. Regan's goal is to strengthen privacy claims in policy making: "if we did recognize the collective or public-good value of privacy, as well as the common and public value of privacy, those advocating privacy protections would have a stronger basis upon which to argue for its protection".
Leslie Regan Shade argues that the human right to privacy is necessary for meaningful democratic participation, and ensures human dignity and autonomy. Privacy depends on norms for how information is distributed, and if this is appropriate. Violations of privacy depend on context. The human right to privacy has precedent in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Shade believes that privacy must be approached from a people-centered perspective, and not through the marketplace.
In a consumer protection approach, in contrast, it is acknowledged that individuals may not have the time or knowledge to make informed choices, or may not have reasonable alternatives available. In support of this view, Jensen and Potts showed that most privacy policies are above the reading level of the average person . Therefore, this approach advocates greater government definition and enforcement of privacy standards.
, article 12, states:
Europe
For Europe
, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights
guarantees the right to respect for private and family life, one's home and correspondence. The European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg
has developed a large body of jurisprudence defining this fundamental right to privacy. The European Union
requires all member states to legislate to ensure that citizens have a right to privacy, through directives such as the 1995 Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data
. It is regulated in the United Kingdom
by the Data Protection Act 1998 and in France data protection is also monitored by the CNIL
, a governmental body which must authorize legislation concerning privacy before them being enacted.
Although there are comprehensive regulations for data protection, Some studies show that despite the laws, there is a lack of enforcement in that no institution feels responsible to control the parties involved and enforce their laws.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom
, it is not possible to bring an action for invasion of privacy. An action may be brought under another tort
(usually breach of confidence) and privacy must then be considered under EC law. In the UK, it is sometimes a defence that disclosure of private information was in the public interest.
There is, however, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), an independent public body set up to promote access to official information and protect personal information. They do this by promoting good practice, ruling on eligible complaints, giving information to individuals and organisations, and taking action when the law is broken. The relevant UK laws include: Data Protection Act 1998; Freedom of Information Act 2000
; Environmental Information Regulations 2004; Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003
. The ICO has also provided a "Personal Information Toolkit" online which explains in more detail the various ways of protecting privacy online.
United States
Concerning privacy laws of the United States, privacy is not guaranteed per se by the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States
has found that other guarantees have "penumbras" that implicitly grant a right to privacy against government intrusion, for example in Griswold v. Connecticut
(1965). In the United States, the right of freedom of speech
granted in the First Amendment
has limited the effects of lawsuits for breach of privacy. Privacy is regulated in the U.S. by the Privacy Act of 1974
, and various state laws. Certain privacy rights have been established in the United States via legislation such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
(COPPA), the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA).
Canada
Canadian privacy law
is governed federally by multiple acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
, and the Privacy Act (Canada). Mostly this legislation concerns privacy infringement by government organizations. Data privacy
was first addressed with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
, and provincial-level legislation also exists to account for more specific cases personal privacy protection against commercial organizations.
Australia
In Australia
there is the Privacy Act 1988
. Privacy sector provisions of the Act apply to private sector organisations with a link to Australia, including:
1. individuals who collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of a business. For example, a sole trader's business activities will be regulated (unless it's a small business), but information gathered outside business activities won't be;
2. bodies corporate; and
3. partnerships, unincorporated associations and trusts - any act or practice of a partner, committee member or trustee is attributed to the organisation.
Organisations outside Australia must comply with the provisions in some circumstances. Sending information out of Australia is also regulated.
For example e-mails can be encrypted and anonymizing proxies or anonymizing networks like I2P
and Tor
can be used to prevent the internet service providers from knowing which sites one visits and with whom one communicates. Covert collection of personally identifiable information has been identified as a primary concern by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Although some privacy advocates recommend the deletion of original and third-party HTTP cookies, Anthony Miyazaki, marketing professor at Florida International University
and privacy scholar, warns that the "elimination of third-party cookie use by Web sites can be circumvented by cooperative strategies with third parties in which information is transferred after the Web site's use of original domain cookies." As of December 2010, the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing policy regarding this issue as it relates to behavioral advertising.
Another aspect of privacy on the Internet relates to online social networking. Several online social network sites (OSNs) are among the top 10 most visited websites globally. A review and evalutation of scholarly work regarding the current state of the value of individuals' privacy of online social networking show the following results: "first, adults seem to be more concerned about potential privacy threats than younger users; second, policy makers should be alarmed by a large part of users who underestimate risks of their information privacy on OSNs; third, in the case of using OSNs and its services, traditional one-dimensional privacy approaches fall short".
and preferences constitute personal information and improper use of them violates user's privacy. Several methods to protect user's privacy when using location based services have been proposed, including the use of anonymizing servers, blurring of information e.a. Methods to quantify privacy have also been proposed, to be able to calculate the equilibrium between the benefit of providing accurate location information and the drawbacks of risking personal privacy. Users of such services may also choose to display more generic location information (i.e. "In the City" or "Philadelphia" or "Work") to some of their more casual acquaintances while only displaying specific location information, such as their exact address, to closer contacts like spouse, relatives, and good friends.
states that privacy and data protection are embedded throughout the entire life cycle of technologies, from the early design
stage to their deployment, use and ultimate disposal.
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
, the wish to remain unnoticed or unidentified 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 partially intersects security
Security
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
, including for instance the concepts of appropriate use, as well as protection, of information.
The right not to be subjected to unsanctioned invasion of privacy by the government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
, corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s or individual
Individual
An individual is a person or any specific object or thing in a collection. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. Being self expressive...
s is part of many countries' privacy laws, and in some cases, constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
s. 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
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
or earnings
Earnings
Earnings are the net benefits of a Corporation's operation. Earnings is also the amount on which corporate tax is due. For an analysis of specific aspects of corporate operations several more specific terms are used as EBIT -- earnings before interest and taxes, EBITDA - earnings before...
. In some countries individual privacy may conflict with freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
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', for instance by willing participants in sweepstakes or competitions. In the business world, a person may volunteer personal details (often for advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
purposes) in order to gamble on winning a prize. Personal information which is voluntarily shared but subsequently stolen or misused can lead to identity theft
Identity theft
Identity theft is a form of stealing another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name...
.
Privacy, as the term is generally understood in the West, is not a universal concept and remained virtually unknown in some cultures until recent times. Most cultures, however, recognize the ability of individuals to withhold certain parts of their personal information from wider society - a figleaf over the genitals being an ancient example.
The word "privacy" is sometimes regarded as untranslatable
Untranslatability
Untranslatability is a property of a text, or of any utterance, in one language, for which no equivalent text or utterance can be found in another language when translated....
by linguists. Many languages lack a specific word for "privacy". Such languages either use a complex description to translate the term (such as Russian combine meaning of уединение - solitude, секретность - secrecy, and частная жизнь - private life) or borrow English "privacy" (as Indonesian Privasi or Italian la privacy).
Types of privacy
The term "privacy" means many things in different contexts. Different people, cultures, and nations have a wide variety of expectations about how much privacy a person is entitled to or what constitutes an invasion of privacyInvasion of privacy
United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...
.
Brief Description of Privacy
Physical privacy could be defined as preventing "intrusions into one's physical space or solitude"This would include such concerns as:
- preventing intimate acts or hiding one's body from others for the purpose of modestyModestyStandards of modesty are aspects of the culture of a country or people, at a given point in time, and is a measure against which an individual in society may be judged....
; apart from being dressedClothingClothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
this can be achieved by wallWallA wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into rooms, or protects or delineates a space in the open air...
s, fenceFenceA fence is a freestanding structure designed to restrict or prevent movement across a boundary. It is generally distinguished from a wall by the lightness of its construction: a wall is usually restricted to such barriers made from solid brick or concrete, blocking vision as well as passage .Fences...
s, privacy screens, cathedral glassCathedral glassCathedral glass is the name given commercially to monochromatic sheet glass, which is thin by comparison with slab glass, may be coloured and is textured on one side....
, partitions between urinals, by being far away from others, on a bed by a bed sheetBed sheetA bed sheet is a piece of cloth used to cover a mattress. It is this sheet that one typically lies on.In many areas of the world, a second flat bed sheet is laid on top of the sheet covering the mattress. This is known as a "top sheet" and when a top sheet is used, the sheet covering the mattress...
or a blanketBlanketA blanket is a type of bedding, generally speaking, a large piece of cloth, intended to keep the user warm, especially while sleeping. Blankets are distinguished from sheets by their thickness and purpose; the thickest sheet is still thinner than the lightest blanket. Blankets are generally used...
, when changing clothes by a towelTowelA towel is a piece of absorbent fabric or paper used for drying or wiping. It draws moisture through direct contact, often using a blotting or a rubbing motion. Common household textile towels are made from cotton, rayon, bamboo, nonwoven fibers or a few other materials.-Types of towels:* A bath...
, etc.; to what extent these measures also prevent acts being heard varies - video, of aptly named graphic, or intimate, acts, behaviors or body parts
- preventing unwelcome searching of one's personal possessions
- preventing unauthorized access to one's home, vehicle or man-cave
- medical privacy, the right to make fundamental medical decisions without governmental coercion or third party review, most widely applied to questions of contraception
An example of the legal basis for the right to physical privacy is the US Fourth Amendment
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...
which guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures",. Most countries have laws regarding trespassing and property rights also determine the right of physical privacy.
Physical privacy may be a matter of cultural sensitivity, personal dignity, and/or shyness. There may also be concerns about safety, if for example one is wary of becoming the victim of crime or stalking
Stalking
Stalking is a term commonly used to refer to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them via the internet...
. Civil inattention
Civil inattention
Civil inattention is the process whereby strangers who are in close proximity demonstrate that they are aware of one another, without imposing on each other...
is a process whereby individuals are able to maintain their privacy within a crowd.
Informational
Information or data privacy refers to the evolving relationship between technology and the legal right to, or public expectation of privacy in the collection and sharing of data about one's self. Privacy concerns exist wherever uniquely identifiable data relating to a person or persons are collected and stored, in digital form or otherwise. In some cases these concerns refer to how data is collected, stored, and associated. In other cases the issue is who is given access to information. Other issues include whether an individual has any ownership rights to data about them, and/or the right to view, verify, and challenge that information.Various types of personal information are often associated with privacy concerns. For various reasons, individuals may object to personal information such as their religion, sexual orientation, political affiliations, or personal activities being revealed, perhaps to avoid discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
, personal embarrassment, or damage to their professional reputations.
Financial privacy
Financial privacy
Financial Privacy is a blanket term for a multitude of privacy issues:*Financial Institutions ensuring that their customers information remains private to those outside the institution. Issues include the Patriot Act, and other debates of privacy vs...
, in which information about a person's financial transactions is guarded, is important for the avoidance of fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
including identity theft
Identity theft
Identity theft is a form of stealing another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name...
. Information about a person's purchases, for instance, can reveal a great deal about their preferences, places they have visited, their contacts, products (such as medications) they use, their activities and habits etc.
Internet privacy
Internet privacy
Internet privacy involves the right or mandate of personal privacy concerning the storing, repurposing, providing to third-parties, and displaying of information pertaining to oneself via the Internet. Privacy can entail both Personally Identifying Information or non-PII information such as a...
is the ability to determine what information one reveals or withholds about oneself over the Internet, who has access to such information, and for what purposes one's information may or may not be used. For example, web users may be concerned to discover that many of the web sites which they visit collect, store, and possibly share personally identifiable information
Personally identifiable information
Personally Identifiable Information , as used in information security, is information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual...
about them. Similarly, Internet email users generally consider their emails to be private and hence would be concerned if their email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
was being accessed, read, stored or forwarded by third parties without their consent. Tools used to protect privacy on the Internet include encryption tools and anonymizing services like I2P
I2P
I2P is a mixed-license, free and open source project building an anonymous network .The network is a simple layer that applications can use to anonymously and securely send...
and Tor
Tor (anonymity network)
Tor is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Tor client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage from someone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis...
.
Medical privacy
Medical privacy
The main subject of medical privacy or health privacy is the 'medical record' which historically has been a paper file of the entire medical history of the patient. Various electronic forms of medical records have existed in western countries, but mostly in an unintegrated fashion. This lack of...
allows a person to withhold their medical records and other information from others, perhaps because of fears that it might affect their insurance coverage or employment, or to avoid the embarrassment caused by revealing medical conditions or treatments. Medical information could also reveal other aspects of one's personal life, such as sexual preferences or proclivity. A right to sexual privacy enables individuals to acquire and use contraceptives
Contraceptive security
Contraceptive security is a situation in which people are able to reliably choose, obtain, and use quality contraceptives for family planning and sexually transmitted disease prevention when they want them....
without family, community or legal sanctions.
Political privacy
Political privacy
Political privacy has been a concern since voting systems emerged in ancient times. The secret ballot is the simplest and most widespread measure to ensure that political views are not known to anyone other than the voter—it is nearly universal in modern democracy, and considered a basic right of...
has been a concern since voting system
Voting system
A voting system or electoral system is a method by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum....
s emerged in ancient times. The secret ballot
Secret ballot
The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...
helps to ensure that voters cannot be coerced into voting in certain ways, since they can allocate their vote as they wish in the privacy and security of the voting booth while maintaining the anonymity of the vote. Secret ballots are nearly universal in modern democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
, and considered a basic right of citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
, despite the difficulties that they cause (for example the inability to trace votes back to the corresponding voters increases the risk of someone stuffing additional fraudulent votes into the system: additional security controls are needed to minimize such risks).
Organizational
Governments agencies, corporations, groups/societies and other organizations may desire to keep their activities or secrets from being revealed to other organizations or individuals, adopting various securitySecurity
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
practices and controls in order to prevent this. Organizations may seek legal protection for their secrets. For example, a government administration may be able to invoke executive privilege
Executive privilege
In the United States government, executive privilege is the power claimed by the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government...
or declares certain information to be classified
Classified information
Classified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
, or a corporation might attempt to protect valuable proprietary information as trade secret
Trade secret
A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable, by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors or customers...
s..
Spiritual and intellectual
The earliest legislative development of privacy rights began under British common law, which protected "only the physical interference of life and property." Its development from then on became "one of the most significant chapters in the history of privacy law." Privacy rights gradually expanded to include a "recognition of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and his intellect." Eventually, the scope of those rights broadened even further to include a basic "right to be let alone," and the former definition of "property" would then comprise "every form of possession -- intangible, as well as tangible." By the late 19th century, interest in a "right to privacy" grew as a response to the growth of print media, especially newspapers.History of privacy
Privacy and technology
As technology has advanced, the way in which privacy is protected and violated has changed with it. In the case of some technologies, such as the printing pressPrinting press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
or the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, the increased ability to share information can lead to new ways in which privacy can be breached. It is generally agreed that the first publication advocating privacy in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
was the article by Samuel Warren
Samuel D. Warren (US attorney)
Samuel Dennis Warren was a Boston attorney.Warren graduated from Harvard College in 1875 and graduated second in his class at Harvard Law School in 1877. The first-place student was his friend Louis Brandeis, later a justice of the United States Supreme Court...
and Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis ; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents who raised him in a secular mode...
, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harvard L.R. 193 (1890), that was written largely in response to the increase in newspapers and photographs made possible by printing technologies.
New technologies can also create new ways to gather private information. For example, in the U.S. it was thought that heat sensors intended to be used to find marijuana growing operations would be acceptable. However in 2001 in Kyllo v. United States
Kyllo v. United States
Kyllo v. United States, , held that the use of a thermal imaging device from a public vantage point to monitor the radiation of heat from a person's home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus required a warrant...
(533 U.S. 27) it was decided that the use of thermal imaging devices that can reveal previously unknown information without a warrant does indeed constitute a violation of privacy.
Generally the increased ability to gather and send information has had negative implications for retaining privacy. As large scale information systems
Information systems
Information Systems is an academic/professional discipline bridging the business field and the well-defined computer science field that is evolving toward a new scientific area of study...
become more common, there is so much information stored in many databases worldwide that an individual has no practical means of knowing of or controlling all of the information about themselves that others may have hold or access. Such information could potentially be sold to others for profit and/or be used for purposes not known to or sanctioned by the individual concerned. The concept of information privacy has become more significant as more systems controlling more information appear. Also the consequences of privacy violations can be more severe. Privacy law
Privacy law
Privacy law refers to the laws which deal with the regulation of personal information about individuals which can be collected by governments and other public as well as private organizations and its storage and use....
in many countries has had to adapt to changes in technology in order to address these issues and, to some extent, maintain privacy rights. But the existing global privacy rights framework has also been criticized as incoherent and inefficient. Proposals such as the APEC Privacy Framework have emerged which set out to provide the first comprehensive legal framework on the issue of global data privacy.
Privacy and the Internet
The Internet has brought new concerns about privacy in an age where computers can permanently store records of everything: "where every online photo, status update, Twitter post and blog entry by and about us can be stored forever," writes law professor and author Jeffrey Rosen.This currently has an effect on employment. Microsoft reports that 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals now do online research about candidates, often using information provided by search engines, social-networking sites, photo/video-sharing sites, personal web sites and blogs, and Twitter. They also report that 70 percent of U.S. recruiters have rejected candidates based on internet information. This has created a need by many to control various online privacy settings in addition to controlling their online reputations, both of which have led to legal suits against various sites and employers.
The ability to do online inquiries about individuals has expanded dramatically over the last decade. Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
for example, as of July 2010, was the largest social-networking site, with nearly 500 million members, or 22 percent of all Internet users, who upload over 25 billion pieces of content each month. Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
has more than 100 million registered users. The Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
recently announced that it will be acquiring — and permanently storing — the entire archive of public Twitter posts since 2006, reports Rosen.
According to some experts, many commonly used communication devices may be mapping every move of their users. Senator Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....
has noted the seriousness of iPhones and iPads having the ability to record and store users locations in unencrypted files, although Apple denied doing so.
Andrew Grove
Andrew Grove
Andrew Stephen Grove , is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American Businessman/ Engineer, Author & a science pioneer in the semiconductor industry. He escaped from Communist-controlled Hungary at the age of 20 and moved to the U.S., where he finished his education...
, co-founder and former CEO of Intel Corporation
Intel Corporation
Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
, offered his thoughts on internet privacy in an interview in 2000:
The right to privacy
Privacy uses the theory of natural rights, and generally responds to new information and communication technologies. In North America, Samuel D. WarrenSamuel D. Warren (US attorney)
Samuel Dennis Warren was a Boston attorney.Warren graduated from Harvard College in 1875 and graduated second in his class at Harvard Law School in 1877. The first-place student was his friend Louis Brandeis, later a justice of the United States Supreme Court...
and Louis D. Brandeis wrote that privacy is the "right to be let alone" (Warren & Brandeis, 1890) focuses on protecting individuals. This citation was a response to recent technological developments, such as photography, and sensationalist journalism, also known as yellow journalism
Yellow journalism
Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism...
. Warren and Brandeis declared that information which was previously hidden and private could now be "shouted from the rooftops."
Privacy rights are inherently intertwined with information technology. In his widely cited dissenting opinion
Dissenting opinion
A dissenting opinion is an opinion in a legal case written by one or more judges expressing disagreement with the majority opinion of the court which gives rise to its judgment....
in Olmstead v. United States
Olmstead v. United States
Olmstead v. United States, , was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which the Court reviewed whether the use of wiretapped private telephone conversations, obtained by federal agents without judicial approval and subsequently used as evidence, constituted a violation of the...
(1928), Brandeis relied on thoughts he developed in his Harvard Law Review article in 1890. But in his dissent, he now changed the focus whereby he urged making personal privacy matters more relevant to constitutional law
Constitutional law
Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....
, going so far as saying "the government [was] identified . . . as a potential privacy invader." He writes, "Discovery and invention have made it possible for the Government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet." At that time, telephones were often community assets, with shared party lines and the potentially nosey human operators. By the time of Katz, in 1967, telephones had become personal devices with lines not shared across homes and switching was electro-mechanical. In the 1970s, new computing and recording technologies began to raise concerns about privacy, resulting in the Fair Information Practice Principles.
Definitions
In recent years there have been only few attempts to clearly and precisely define a "right to privacy." Some experts assert that in fact the right to privacy "should not be defined as a separate legal right" at all. By their reasoning, existing laws relating to privacy in general should be sufficient. Other experts, such as Dean ProsserWilliam Prosser
William Lloyd Prosser was the Dean of the College of Law at UC Berkeley from 1948 to 1961. Prosser authored several editions of Prosser on Torts, universally recognized as the leading work on the subject of tort law for a generation. It is still widely used today, now known as Prosser and Keeton...
, have attempted, but failed, to find a "common ground" between the leading kinds of privacy cases in the court system, at least to formulate a definition. One law school treatise from Israel, however, on the subject of "privacy in the digital environment," suggests that the "right to privacy should be seen as an independent right that deserves legal protection in itself." It has therefore proposed a working definition for a "right to privacy":
The right to privacy is our right to keep a domain around us, which includes all those things that are part of us, such as our body, home, thoughts, feelings, secrets and identity. The right to privacy gives us the ability to choose which parts in this domain can be accessed by others, and to control the extent, manner and timing of the use of those parts we choose to disclose.
An individual right
Alan WestinAlan Westin
Alan F. Westin is Professor of Public Law & Government Emeritus, Columbia University, former publisher of Privacy & American Business, and former President of the Center for Social & Legal Research....
believes that new technologies alter the balance between privacy and disclosure, and that privacy rights may limit government surveillance to protect democratic processes. Westin defines privacy as "the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others". Westin describes four states of privacy: solitude, intimacy, anonymity, reserve. These states must balance participation against norms:
Each individual is continually engaged in a personal adjustment process in which he balances the desire for privacy with the desire for disclosure and communication of himself to others, in light of the environmental conditions and social norms set by the society in which he lives.
- Alan Westin, Privacy and Freedom, 1968
Under liberal democratic systems, privacy creates a space separate from political life, and allows personal autonomy, while ensuring democratic freedoms of association and expression.
David Flaherty believes networked computer databases pose threats to privacy. He develops 'data protection' as an aspect of privacy, which involves "the collection, use, and dissemination of personal information". This concept forms the foundation for fair information practices used by governments globally. Flaherty forwards an idea of privacy as information control, "[i]ndividuals want to be left alone and to exercise some control over how information about them is used".
Richard Posner and Lawrence Lessig focus on the economic aspects of personal information control. Posner criticizes privacy for concealing information, which reduces market efficiency. For Posner, employment is selling oneself in the labour market, which he believes is like selling a product. Any 'defect' in the 'product' that is not reported is fraud. For Lessig, privacy breaches online can be regulated through code and law. Lessig claims "the protection of privacy would be stronger if people conceived of the right as a property right", and that "individuals should be able to control information about themselves". Economic approaches to privacy make communal conceptions of privacy difficult to maintain.
A collective value and a human right
There have been attempts to reframe privacy as a fundamental human rightHuman rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, whose social value is an essential component in the functioning of democratic societies. Amitai Etzioni
Amitai Etzioni
Amitai Etzioni is a German-Israeli-American sociologist.-Biography:In 1933, Amitai Etzioni was only four years old when the Nazis rose to power in Germany. He was separated from his family but reunited with them by the year 1947...
suggests a communitarian
Communitarianism
Communitarianism is an ideology that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. That community may be the family unit, but it can also be understood in a far wider sense of personal interaction, of geographical location, or of shared history.-Terminology:Though the term...
approach to privacy. This requires a shared moral culture for establishing social order. Etzioni believes that "[p]rivacy is merely one good among many others", and that technological effects depend on community accountability and oversight (ibid). He claims that privacy laws only increase government surveillance.
Priscilla Regan believes that individual concepts of privacy have failed philosophically and in policy. She supports a social value of privacy with three dimensions: shared perceptions, public values, and collective
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
components. Shared ideas about privacy allows freedom of conscience and diversity in thought. Public values guarantee democratic participation, including freedoms of speech and association, and limits government power. Collective elements describe privacy as collective good that cannot be divided. Regan's goal is to strengthen privacy claims in policy making: "if we did recognize the collective or public-good value of privacy, as well as the common and public value of privacy, those advocating privacy protections would have a stronger basis upon which to argue for its protection".
Leslie Regan Shade argues that the human right to privacy is necessary for meaningful democratic participation, and ensures human dignity and autonomy. Privacy depends on norms for how information is distributed, and if this is appropriate. Violations of privacy depend on context. The human right to privacy has precedent in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Shade believes that privacy must be approached from a people-centered perspective, and not through the marketplace.
Free market versus consumer protection approaches
Approaches to privacy can, broadly, be divided into two categories: free market, and consumer protection. In a free market approach, commercial entities are largely allowed to do what they wish, with the expectation that consumers will choose to do business with corporations that respect their privacy to a desired degree. If some companies are not sufficiently respectful of privacy, they will lose market share. Such an approach may be limited by lack of competition in a market, by enterprises not offering privacy options favorable to the user, or by lack of information about actual privacy practices. Claims of privacy protection made by companies may be difficult for consumers to verify, except when they have already been violated.In a consumer protection approach, in contrast, it is acknowledged that individuals may not have the time or knowledge to make informed choices, or may not have reasonable alternatives available. In support of this view, Jensen and Potts showed that most privacy policies are above the reading level of the average person . Therefore, this approach advocates greater government definition and enforcement of privacy standards.
Privacy law
Privacy law is the area of law concerning the protecting and preserving of privacy rights of individuals. While there is no universally accepted privacy law among all countries, some organizations promote certain concepts be enforced by individual countries. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human RightsUniversal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
, article 12, states:
- No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Europe
For Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights
European Convention on Human Rights
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force on 3 September 1953...
guarantees the right to respect for private and family life, one's home and correspondence. The European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
has developed a large body of jurisprudence defining this fundamental right to privacy. The European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
requires all member states to legislate to ensure that citizens have a right to privacy, through directives such as the 1995 Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data
Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data
The Data Protection Directive is a European Union directive which regulates the processing of personal data within the European Union...
. It is regulated in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by the Data Protection Act 1998 and in France data protection is also monitored by the CNIL
CNIL
The Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés or CNIL is an independent French administrative authority whose mission is to ensure that data privacy law is applied to the collection, storage, and use of personal data. Its existence was established by French , concerning computers,...
, a governmental body which must authorize legislation concerning privacy before them being enacted.
Although there are comprehensive regulations for data protection, Some studies show that despite the laws, there is a lack of enforcement in that no institution feels responsible to control the parties involved and enforce their laws.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, it is not possible to bring an action for invasion of privacy. An action may be brought under another tort
Tort
A tort, in common law jurisdictions, is a wrong that involves a breach of a civil duty owed to someone else. It is differentiated from a crime, which involves a breach of a duty owed to society in general...
(usually breach of confidence) and privacy must then be considered under EC law. In the UK, it is sometimes a defence that disclosure of private information was in the public interest.
There is, however, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), an independent public body set up to promote access to official information and protect personal information. They do this by promoting good practice, ruling on eligible complaints, giving information to individuals and organisations, and taking action when the law is broken. The relevant UK laws include: Data Protection Act 1998; Freedom of Information Act 2000
Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level...
; Environmental Information Regulations 2004; Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003
Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 is a law in the United Kingdom which made it unlawful to, amongst other things, transmit an automated recorded message for direct marketing purposes via a telephone, without prior consent of the subscriber.This is somewhat similar to the...
. The ICO has also provided a "Personal Information Toolkit" online which explains in more detail the various ways of protecting privacy online.
United States
Concerning privacy laws of the United States, privacy is not guaranteed per se by the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
has found that other guarantees have "penumbras" that implicitly grant a right to privacy against government intrusion, for example in Griswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut, , was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives...
(1965). In the United States, the right of freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
granted in the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
has limited the effects of lawsuits for breach of privacy. Privacy is regulated in the U.S. by the Privacy Act of 1974
Privacy Act of 1974
The Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, Public Law No. 93-579, establishes a Code of Fair Information Practice that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies...
, and various state laws. Certain privacy rights have been established in the United States via legislation such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 is a United States federal law, located at .The act, effective April 21, 2000, applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction from children under 13 years of age...
(COPPA), the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 was enacted by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. It was originally sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy and Sen. Nancy Kassebaum . Title I of HIPAA protects health insurance coverage for workers and their...
(HIPAA).
Canada
Canadian privacy law
Canadian privacy law
Canadian privacy law is encapsulated within multiple acts, and the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms. They are listed below in chronological order...
is governed federally by multiple acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982...
, and the Privacy Act (Canada). Mostly this legislation concerns privacy infringement by government organizations. Data privacy
Data privacy
Information privacy, or data privacy is the relationship between collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, and the legal and political issues surrounding them....
was first addressed with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act is a Canadian law relating to data privacy. It governs how private sector organizations collect, use and disclose personal information in the course of commercial business. In addition, the Act contains various provisions to...
, and provincial-level legislation also exists to account for more specific cases personal privacy protection against commercial organizations.
Australia
In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
there is the Privacy Act 1988
Privacy Act 1988
The Privacy Act 1988 is an Australian law dealing with the privacySection 14 of the Act stipulates a number of privacy rights known as the Information Privacy Principles. These principles apply to Australian Government and Australian Capital Territory agencies or private sector organisations...
. Privacy sector provisions of the Act apply to private sector organisations with a link to Australia, including:
1. individuals who collect, use or disclose personal information in the course of a business. For example, a sole trader's business activities will be regulated (unless it's a small business), but information gathered outside business activities won't be;
2. bodies corporate; and
3. partnerships, unincorporated associations and trusts - any act or practice of a partner, committee member or trustee is attributed to the organisation.
Organisations outside Australia must comply with the provisions in some circumstances. Sending information out of Australia is also regulated.
Privacy on the Internet
There are many means to protect one's privacy on the internet.For example e-mails can be encrypted and anonymizing proxies or anonymizing networks like I2P
I2P
I2P is a mixed-license, free and open source project building an anonymous network .The network is a simple layer that applications can use to anonymously and securely send...
and Tor
Tor (anonymity network)
Tor is a system intended to enable online anonymity. Tor client software routes Internet traffic through a worldwide volunteer network of servers in order to conceal a user's location or usage from someone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis...
can be used to prevent the internet service providers from knowing which sites one visits and with whom one communicates. Covert collection of personally identifiable information has been identified as a primary concern by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Although some privacy advocates recommend the deletion of original and third-party HTTP cookies, Anthony Miyazaki, marketing professor at Florida International University
Florida International University
Florida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...
and privacy scholar, warns that the "elimination of third-party cookie use by Web sites can be circumvented by cooperative strategies with third parties in which information is transferred after the Web site's use of original domain cookies." As of December 2010, the Federal Trade Commission is reviewing policy regarding this issue as it relates to behavioral advertising.
Another aspect of privacy on the Internet relates to online social networking. Several online social network sites (OSNs) are among the top 10 most visited websites globally. A review and evalutation of scholarly work regarding the current state of the value of individuals' privacy of online social networking show the following results: "first, adults seem to be more concerned about potential privacy threats than younger users; second, policy makers should be alarmed by a large part of users who underestimate risks of their information privacy on OSNs; third, in the case of using OSNs and its services, traditional one-dimensional privacy approaches fall short".
Privacy and Location Based Services
As location tracking capabilities of mobile devices are increasing, problems related to user privacy arise, since user's positionand preferences constitute personal information and improper use of them violates user's privacy. Several methods to protect user's privacy when using location based services have been proposed, including the use of anonymizing servers, blurring of information e.a. Methods to quantify privacy have also been proposed, to be able to calculate the equilibrium between the benefit of providing accurate location information and the drawbacks of risking personal privacy. Users of such services may also choose to display more generic location information (i.e. "In the City" or "Philadelphia" or "Work") to some of their more casual acquaintances while only displaying specific location information, such as their exact address, to closer contacts like spouse, relatives, and good friends.
Privacy by Design
The principle of Privacy by DesignPrivacy by Design
Privacy by Design means that privacy and data protection are embedded throughout the entire life cycle of technologies, from the early design stage to their deployment, use and ultimate disposal....
states that privacy and data protection are embedded throughout the entire life cycle of technologies, from the early design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
stage to their deployment, use and ultimate disposal.
See also
- Civil libertiesCivil libertiesCivil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
- Digital identityDigital identityDigital identity is the aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the mediation of people's experience of their own identity and the identity of other people and things...
- Expectation of privacyExpectation of privacyIn United States constitutional law the expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution...
- Information privacy
- Information privacy law
- Nineteen Eighty-FourNineteen Eighty-FourNineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
- Personal rightsPersonal rightsPersonal rights are the rights that a person has over their own body. Among personal rights are associated rights to protect and safeguard the body, most obviously protected by the torts of assault and battery...
- Privacy-enhancing technologies
- Privacy lawPrivacy lawPrivacy law refers to the laws which deal with the regulation of personal information about individuals which can be collected by governments and other public as well as private organizations and its storage and use....
- Privacy laws of the United States
- Privacy policyPrivacy policyPrivacy policy is a statement or a legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses and manages a customer or client's data...
- Private spherePrivate sphereThe private sphere is the complement or opposite to the public sphere. The private sphere is a certain sector of societal life in which an individual enjoys a degree of authority, unhampered by interventions from governmental or other institutions. Examples of the private sphere are family and home...
- Profiling practicesProfiling practicesProfiling refers to the whole process of construction and application of profiles generated by computerized profiling technologies. What characterizes profiling technologies is the use of algorithms or other mathematical techniques that allow one to discover patterns or correlations in large...
- Public figurePublic figurePublic figure is a legal term applied in the context of defamation actions as well as invasion of privacy. A public figure cannot base a lawsuit on incorrect harmful statements unless there is proof that the writer or publisher acted with actual malice...
- SousveillanceSousveillanceSousveillance refers to the recording of an activity by a participant in the activity typically by way of small wearable or portable personal technologies.Sousveillance has also been described as "inverse surveillance", i.e...
- SurveillanceSurveillanceSurveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
- Privacy softwarePrivacy softwarePrivacy software is software built to protect the privacy of its users. The software typically works in conjunction with Internet usage to control or limit the amount of information made available to third-parties. The software can apply encryption or filtering of various kinds.Privacy software can...
- solitudeSolitudeSolitude is a state of seclusion or isolation, i.e., lack of contact with people. It may stem from bad relationships, deliberate choice, infectious disease, mental disorders, neurological disorders or circumstances of employment or situation .Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one...
Further reading
- Yael Onn, et al. Privacy in the Digital Environment , Haifa Center of Law & Technology, (2005)
- Judith Wagner DeCew, 1997, In Pursuit of Privacy: Law, Ethics, and the Rise of Technology, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
- Ruth GavisonRuth GavisonRuth Gavison is an Israeli Law professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is also a Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Israel Democracy Institute...
, "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. - Ulrike Hugl, "Approaching the value of Privacy: Review of theoretical privacy concepts and aspects of privacy management", Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) 2010, paper no. 248.
- Steve Lohr, "How Privacy Can Vanish Online, a Bit at a Time", The New York Times, Wednesday, March 17, 2010
- Adam D. Moore, 2010, "Privacy Rights: Moral and Legal Foundations," Penn State University Press.
- Daniel J. Solove, "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy", San Diego Law Review, Vol. 44, 745-772.
- 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.
- Rita Watson and Menahem Blondheim (eds.), The Toronto School of Communication Theory: Interpretations, Extensions and Applications (Toronto and Jerusalem: University of Toronto Press and Magnes Press, 2007)
- A. Westin, 1967, Privacy and Freedom, New York: Atheneum
- Robert Ellis SmithRobert Ellis SmithRobert Ellis Smith is an American attorney, author, and a publisher/journalist whose focus is mainly privacy rights.Robert began his career in journalism during high school and while attending Harvard. He was President of The Harvard Crimson...
, 2004, "Ben Franklin's Web Site, Privacy and Curiosity from Plymouth Rock to the Internet," Providence: Privacy Journal - Bruce SchneierBruce SchneierBruce Schneier is an American cryptographer, computer security specialist, and writer. He is the author of several books on general security topics, computer security and cryptography, and is the founder and chief technology officer of BT Managed Security Solutions, formerly Counterpane Internet...
, Privacy in the Age of Persistence - Frederick S. Lane, American Privacy: The 400-Year History of Our Most Contested Right, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2010)
External links
- The State and Surveillance: Fear and Control A article by Didier Bigo and Mireille Delmas-Marty
- Collection of regulatory / academic / business interviews and independent objective analysis
- Privacy International
- Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
- Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
- Privacy and public cameras
- privacy.org, a service of the Electronic Privacy Information CenterElectronic Privacy Information CenterElectronic Privacy Information Center is a public interest research group in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values in the information age...
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
- Privacy Commission
- UNESCO Chair in Data Privacy
- Privacy Office at the Department of Homeland Security
- Interview about internet privacy 12 min. video, Fox News, Jan. 26, 2011