Philosophy
Warren and Brandeis held that privacy was a inviolate right separate from other rights to property, safety, etc. Read their paper published in the Harvard Law Review in 1890. They were arguing against the press of their time, publishing unflattering things about people. Even though there are laws against slander, libel, and defamation, they believed there is also a fundamental right to privacy that may be violated even if these specific laws are followed.
On the other hand is the point of view that there is no fundamental right to privacy but that privacy rights are always derived from other laws that protect us. In the constitution, the fourth amendment protects us against unreasonable search and seizure even though the word privacy is never mentioned. If someone is watching you in your house there are laws against being a peeping Tom. There are laws against stalking. You can create contracts that protect business secrets. People argue that the concept of inviolate privacy rights define privacy as much too broad and are difficult to practically apply to law and governance.
Can you think of an action that seems to violate your privacy but may not be violating any laws? Is there a fundamental right to privacy?
Specifics in application of privacy concepts:
Consent
If you give your consent for information about you to be published or used normally we do not believe that your right to privacy can be violated. This is true for health information, your video on TV, and address and phone number in mailing lists. But in a transaction between two parties, who gives consent, and how?
Sara Baase contrasts two viewpoints on consent, calling one the "Free Market View" and the other the "Consumer-protection View"
Free Market View
This view holds that information about yourself can be traded for money, goods or services. Your privacy is for sell and in the market you should get as much for it as you can. If you give away your privacy then you are just being foolish.
Consumer Protection View
This view holds that consumers are in a weaker position that corporations or the government so they should be protected from loss of privacy. People should be given the "opt-in" rather than "opt-out" options. For instance, if you download a program from the Internet and have to register for that program, your personal information that you give to get that program can only be used (sold, traded) when you specifically check a box to share the information. That is called "opt-in". Opt-out is the preferred method of the corporations raiding your information. They would rather that if you do nothing you are implying that you want your information shared with others (at their profit). Your information will only be protected if you specifically ask the corporation not to share that information with others.
Some consumer protection could be even more strong in the case of medical information by creating laws that prohibit the sale of this kind of personal information. Privacy is a right and is not something that can be bought and sold.
Four Levels of Consent
- Businesses must clearly state their policy of use of personal information.
- Businesses must provide an opt-out option.
- Businesses must provide an opt-in option.
- Businesses must get customer consent for each individual secondary use of information.
Ownership of Personal Information
Some people argue that we should be given property rights to our information, meaning that we own information about ourselves. Most people kind of believe that anyway. When something interesting happens to someone we say that they "sold the rights to their story to the movie producers." In fact, anyone can make a movie about you. They producers are not buying your story, they are just buying your cooperation in obtaining the facts about your story that would make it more interesting. Anyone can make a movie about you. Do you think that is right?
Can you really practically own the information about yourself? How can you own facts? Take the case of the Church of Scientology. They fight in the courts the rights of others to publish facts on the Internet about their religion. On what basis are they making this fight? Can protecting facts about yourself and your privacy be a violation of the free speech of others?
European Union Data Privacy Directive
Summarizing points:
- Personal data can only be collected for specific purposes.
- Data must be accurate and up to date (what ethical issue is this?)
- People must consent unambiguously to sharing their data or that it is used in contractual or governmental processing that is necessary.
- Some kinds of data can not be collected without explicit consent and may be outlawed even with consent (race, sec, union membership, health, religion).
- People must be notified if information about them is being collected and must have access to their personal information.
- Processing data about criminal convictions is severely restricted.
Although adopted in 1995, this directive has been universally applied to member countries.
Interesting Websites
www.cato.org/tech (find a pressing issue)
www.junkbusters.com (how can you stop telemarketers and spam)
www.epic.org (which issues are most important to you in current events)
thomas.loc.gov (seach for privacy)
www.privacy.org/pi/issues/cctv (are they watching us?)
http://www.privacy.org/pi/activities/idcard/idcard_faq.html (should we have a national ID card?)