Class notes
Privacy: Theoretical Perspectives, Future Challenges All Lectures
- Course
- Institution
Privacy: Theoretical Perspectives, Future Challenges All Lectures/slides summary
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
juliangrobben
Content preview
Week 2: ethicsEerst uur is mega onzin
What do we call private? definition, concept, meaning
1. Not being accessible: intimacy, the bedroom and the bathroom (Jeff Reiman)
2. Control over access to a person herself: express the link between privacy and
autonomy (B. Roessler)
Why do we want to be inaccessible?
● Elements of individual freedom and autonomy:
● We want to determine ourselves with whom we want to share a home, our life
● important decisions we want to take ourselves, talk about them with persons of our
own choice
● we want to - roughly - know/regulate who knows what about me
Temu is a shopping app but it's almost a social media platform because it collects so much
data and the products are super targeted.
Who knows what about me?
Different dimensions of privacy
● Systematic approach: different dimensions of privacy to overcome the metaphor of
spaces
● Three dimensions:
● local, decisional, informational
● no natural borderline: purely conventional
I. Local privacy
● classical and traditional concept of privacy: the home
● Protection of family and intimate relations
● internal normative limits: equal rights for everyone
II. Decisional privacy
● classical liberal idea of freedom: negative liberties of religion, freedom of speech;
difference between rights of freedom and privacy rights can be fuzzy
● Moral right, based on conventions, not on nature, inaccessible in the sense of being
able to do what one wants
● basic idea: its none of your business, for instance children to their parents, but also:
● Decisional privacy in the US: a woman's right to have an abortion (1973, Roe v Wade)
III. Informational privacy
● information others have about me - therefore the general question: what do others
know about me?
● friends, workplace, strangers, streets, companies, state
, ● basic idea: only if I can roughly control/have justified expectations as to what other
know about me can I have individual freedom
● What does this mean?
Example, the basic idea: The Voyeur (John Barth)
● you’re a good student
● you told your friends you were going to study, but are actually violently masturbating
● you’re girlfriend and another close friend are secretly watching you incredulously
through the window (awkward)
The self and its roles
● What happened: you can’t play the role any longer you were playing; you’re another
person now in their eyes and the relationship is altered/damaged
● But: this is not better/more authentic
● different roles have different functions; there is not ONE authentic self
● if there is nothing to hide you’d have no social life
We always present ourselves in different context differently:
● family
● friends
● work, colleagues
● strangers
This difference in presentations is possible only on the basis of the social norms of privacy
Social norms of informational privacy:
● enables us to play different roles, have different relationships (rachels)
● The norms are not only dependent on the subject, but also on the function of the role
itself (example: teacher and student)
● therefore: privacy is also a social practice
Privacy as a social practice
● protection of individual privacy is part of the practice
● but also: respect for the privacy of other people
● right to privacy and respect is always socially contextualized/conditioned
● Daniel Solove: society without privacy is suffocating: no free zones for individuals
● these social practices of privacy are constitutive for the well functioning of our
society - some examples:
Example I: friendships and norms of informational privacy
● Classical, traditional concept:
● special affection, care and attention for friends
● different communication with friends: different content, different presentation of self;
different commitment
● role of a friend demands that we share important experiences; show ourselves
vulnerable
,Friendship vs connections
● online vs offline
● facebook is not neutral: we think that we use social platforms; but we are
influenced/determined by their design
● transformation of technologies (can) change the meaning of social relations and of
our selfunderstanding (how many friends)
● forms of commitment levelled down; not sufficient audience separation, different
roles
● meaning of what should be private changes (but doesnt vanish)
Friendship vs connections
● “private” used to be the default, now it is “public” (sharing is caring)
● Social networks/the internet: standard preferences are public; privacy is an extra
task, achievement
● also: retaining, storing is the default; forgetting, deleting is an extra task, achievement
● not just with companies like GOogle etc; but also: lifelogging, qualified self
Example II: privacy in public/anonymity offline
● on the street; usual expectations: no one sees me, observes me
● but: CCTV; facial recognition
● also: Ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence: data collection in the home and
road
● number plates (Reiman); OV chipkaart
● State surveillance and consumer surveillance
Privacy in public/anonymity online
● offline/online not clearly differentiated any longer
● anonymity, privacy in public, to enable (social and political) agency and participation
without being identified/tracked
● • “.. anonymity offers a safe way for people to act, transact and participate without
accountability, without others …tracking them down or even punishing them.” ”..,
possibility of acting or participating while remaining out of reach, remaining
unreachable.” (Nissenbaum)
Some ambivalences: anonymity vs security?
● Glenn Greenwald "The treatment of Anonymous …is especially troubling and extreme.
That's because Anonymous is .. a loosely organized affiliation of people around an
idea. … That the NSA targets such broad categories of people is tantamount to
allowing it to spy on anyone anywhere .. whose ideas the government finds
threatening.”
● But: de-anonymization technically very simple; can cause loss of freedom and is
therefore harmful for the individual and democratic society
● But: one could argue: interests of the state/security more important?
Some ambivalences: anonymity vs security?
● cookies; companies collect, use, sell personal data
, ● extremely profitable because of behavioral targeting: more precise profiles lead to
higher profits; predictive analytics
● Consumer surveillance necessary presupposition
● Big Data: information is used in new contexts, which are unexpected and unclear for
the consumer; emergent information
Example III: Significance of privacy for democracy
● Consumer and state surveillance erodes democracy: democratic subjects lose trust
in their governments
● Presumption of innocence not valid
● No sufficient political consequences of the worries of citizens
● But in Europe: GDPR General Data Protection Regulation
● Post Snowden era: protection of privacy is constitutive for democracy
Summary: transformation of social relations - the whole picture
● Surveillance: do governments protect or do they harm citizens?
● Social platforms: do we post too many personal data? Quantified self, life streaming?
● Internet of Things: the complete technologisation/digitization of our daily lives
● Commodification: Big Data Market personal data - do we own them? Consumer
surveillance - for our convenience?
Arguments against the transformation of social relations
● Differences between a variety of social relations enables us to fill in dimensions of
freedom in different ways; different roles are an expression of (relational) autonomy
● Lack in diversity can lead to/means homogenization and conventionalisation
● Suffocating society without privacy; individuality is dependent on privacy
● Democratic subjects dependent on privacy
Conclusion: Snowden again (June 2015)
● We are witnessing the emergence of a post-terror generation, one that rejects a
worldview defined by a singular tragedy. For the first time since the attacks of Sept.
11, 2001, we see the outline of a politics that turns away from reaction and fear in
favor of resilience and reason. With each court victory, with every change in the law,
we demonstrate facts are more convincing than fear. As a society, we rediscover that
the value of a right is not in what it hides, but in what it protects.
What happens to society?
● The question is not only: what do we lose when we lose privacy, give it up, lose a
sense of its significance and the possibility of different individual dimensions of
freedom
● The question is also: how do we change and how does society, our practices change,
when our conceptions of privacy change, when we lose the differences in self
presentation etc, when we lose possibilities of control
● Loss of external and loss of internal freedom (Reiman)
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller juliangrobben. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $5.94. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
75323 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now