• What is privacy?
• Why is it so important, valuable?
• Why is it in danger in ICT society?
• What can be done to prevent/ solve problems
which are related with privacy?
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• If privacy disappears, what exactly be lost? How does
surveillance affect social arrangements, institutions,
and practices? What sort of beings do we become
when we live in surveillance societies?
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Privacy concept is overlapped with the
concepts –
the right for liberty,
autonomy,
secrecy,
to control the information about us.
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• Private organizations and government
agencies have been gathering/ collecting
information for many, many years;
• but in ICT society:
Technology enables to collect, store, alter and
distribute huge amount of data (in respect
with the increase in disk capacities and other
advancement/ innovations in technology)
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•
The scale of information gathering changed, has expanded
exponentially. Easy to create, store, maintain, manipulate, search, and
share. Thus, many more records are created and used.
•
Kind of information changed
(ex: Transaction Generated Information –TGI- Automatic. Ex: When a
shopping action is conducted, detailed info. is being generated
automatically. The record resides in a server somewhere in the world;
can be accessed from any number places, downloaded and forwarded)
•
Although profiles of individuals were produced before ICT, profiles
today are expanded and much more detailed.
•
The scale of info. exchange changed. Distribution of personal
information is broader and more extensive than it was ten or twenty
years ago.
Erroneous personal information also can be distributed and it can
effect person’s life. The erronous information may spread so quickly
that it is impossible for an individual to track down all the places it
exists.
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• Once information about an individual is recorded on a server, it
can be bought and sold, given away, traded, or stolen. The
distribution of information can take place with or without the
knowledge of the person whom the information is about, and it
can take place intentionally as well as unintentionally.
• In addition to these; information tends to endure for much
longer periods of time.
• The data collected in different databases, and in different
context can be merged to create comprehensive profiles of
individuals.
Combinations of data can be mined to find patterns and
correlations
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• Information gathered for one purpose is merged and
mined to identify patterns of behavior that no
individual could have imagined they were revealing
when they (intentionally or unintentionally) disclosed
information.
• Sorting/ categorizing people according to a certain
quality may cause prejudice, injustice, discrimination
and inequality. (Different treatments, different
opportunities)
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• In ICT society, information is given/ collected
for many different purposes;
ex: for;
health analysis, telephone usage, a hotel
reservation transaction, sending a CV, opening
a deposit account in a bank, info. gathering via
surveys, personal information of clients for
customer relations management, and so on…
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Some Topics From The Range of Issues:
•
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Biometrics technologies
Video surveillance
Online privacy
Workplace monitoring
Wireless communications and location tracking
Data profiling
Identity theft
Background checks
Public records on Internet
Financial privacy
Medical records confidentiality and genetic privacy
Wiretapping and electronic communications
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
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(on privacy.org)
The Importance of Privacy:
* Privacy is a human right.
* Privacy is intrinsically good.
* Privacy is an instrumental good.
* Privacy is an individual good.
* Privacy is a social good.
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Privacy as an Individual and Instrumental Good:
Instrumental good --> Leads to other goods.
• Privacy is a complex value that is intertwined with
autonomy, equality, and democracy, and its importance
ought to be recognized in ICT-based practices.
Where privacy does not exist, in societies or context
in which individuals are under surveillance, trust and
friendship cannot develop. (Charles Fried)
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Privacy is necessary for diversity in relationships.
Our teacher, neighbour, doctor, family have different
information about us. (James Rachel) Rachel thinks
about privacy as the control of information about
oneself.
Control of personal information is a means by which
we control the relationships we have and how we are
treated in those relationships.
Control of information about ourselves is an
important component of our autonomy.
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Privacy as Contextual Integrity:
• There are information norms in every domain of life.
(Helen Nissanbaum) Vary from domain to domain but in
each context individuals have expectations about:
1. what kind of information are appropriate and
inappropriate, 2. how that information will be distributed .
There are norms with regard to what is appropriate
information in particular context. Similarly, there are
norms about how the information revealed in particular
context will be distributed. (Who can access particular
kinds of records as well as requirements for disclosing
records to other agencies.)
According to Nissenbaum, when information norms are
violated, an individual’s privacy is violated.
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Privacy as a Social Good Essential For
Democracy:
Democracy requires citizens who are capable of critical thinking,
individuals who can argue about the issues of the day and learn from
the argument so that they can vote intelligently.
People who have autonomy can develop independent thinking.
In democratic societies, people can develop independent thinking and
express their opinions.
•
•
Privacy, autonomy and democracy are so intertwined that one is
inconceivable without the other.
Autonomy is essential for what it means to be a human.
Rational beings are capable of thinking, processing of information and
making judgements, rather than objects or entities to be watched and
manipulated.
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• Many people think that today’s society is a panopticon. Society is
under surveillance by “big brother” as referred the novel “1984”
of George Orwell.
• Where people are watched, under surveillance; they evaluate
themselves from their observer’s eye and behave as their
observer wants.
In Panapticon =) Independent thinking and free expression in
danger/ or not possible.
• Privacy enables making the practice to develop your own sense
and develop the potential for self-discovery and creativity which
lurk within rich inner life. (Jeffrey Reiman)
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Legislative Background:
In 1973, in USA – Fair information Practices – not law, accepted
as a standart and became a model for law.
1.There must be no personal data record-keeping system whose
existence is secret,
2.There must be a way for an individual to find out what
information about him or her is in a record and how it is used,
3. There must be away for an individual to prevent information
about him or her that was obtained for one purpose from being
used or made available for other purposes without his or her
consent.
4.There must be a way for an individual to correct or amend a
record of identifiable information about him or her, and
5.Any organization creating, maintaining, using, or disseminating
records of identifiable personal data must assure the reliability
of the data for their intended use and must take precautions to
prevent the misuse of data.
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What can be done to protect
privacy?
• Computer Professionals can do:
- Taking precautions to ensure the accuracy of data
- Protecting it from unauthorized access or
accidental disclosure to inappropriate individuals
- Provide proper security for the data
- Ensure proper disposal of the data
- Privacy enhancing technologies – cryptographic
techniques.
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• Private and Public Organizations can:
Adopt internal policies with regard to
the handling of personal information.
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• Indivuduals:
– Don’t give away the information more than
necessary
- Aware of the information you are giving
- Keep copies of the information you give
- Ask the reason when there is a negative
decision
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Bibliography:
• Computer Ethics, Deborah Johnson, Pearson Education
International, 2009 (4th edtn.) p. 81-107
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