Privacy

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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 differs between 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 can be seen as an aspect of security — one in which trade-offs between the interests of one group and another can become particularly clear.

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

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

Contents

[edit] 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 privacy.

[edit] Physical

Physical privacy could be defined as preventing "intrusions into one's physical space or solitude"[1] This would include such concerns as:

  • preventing intimate acts or one's body from being seen by others
  • preventing unwelcome searching of one's personal possessions
  • preventing unauthorized access to one's home or vehicle

An example of the legal basis for the right to physical privacy would be the US 4th amendment, which guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures",[2]. 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, or shyness. There may also be concerns about safety, if for example one has concerns about being the victim of crime or stalking.[3]

[edit] Informational

Main article: Data privacy

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 ones 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 includes whether an individual has any ownership rights to data about them, and/or the right to view, verify, and challenge that information.

[edit] Organizational

Governments agencies, corporations, and other organizations may desire to keep their activities or secrets from being revealed to other organizations or individuals. Such organizations may implement various security practices 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[4] or declares certain information to be classified, or a corporation might attempt to protect trade secrets.[5]

[edit] Data types

Various types of personal information often come under privacy concerns.

[edit] Lifestyle

For various reasons, individuals may not wish for personal information such as their religion, sexual orientation, political affiliations, or personal activities to be revealed. This may be to avoid discrimination, personal embarrassment, or damage to one's professional reputation.

[edit] Financial

Main article: Financial privacy

Information about a person's financial transactions, including the amount of assets, positions held in stocks or funds, outstanding debts, and purchases can be sensitive. If criminals gain access to informations such as a person's account or credit card numbers that person could become the victim of fraud or identity theft. Information about a person's purchases can reveal a great deal about that person's history, such as places they have visited, whom they have had contact with, products they use, their activities and habits, or medications they have used. In some cases corporations might wish to use this information to target individuals with marketing customized towards those individual's personal preferences, something which that person may or may not approve of.

[edit] Internet

Main article: Internet privacy

The ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information, has become a growing concern. These concerns include whether email can be stored or read by third parties without consent, or whether third parties can track the web sites someone has visited. Another concern is whether web sites which are visited collect, store, and possibly share personally identifiable information about users.

The advent of various search engines and the use of data mining created a capability for data about individuals to be collected and combined from a wide variety of sources very easily.[6][7][8]

[edit] Medical

Main article: Medical privacy

A person may not wish for their medical records to be revealed to others. This may be because they have concern that it might affect their insurance coverage or employment. Or it may be because they would not wish for others to know about medical or psychological conditions or treatment which would be embarrassing. Revealing medical data could also reveal other details about one's personal life (such as about one's sexual activity for example).

Physician and Psychiatrists in many cultures and countries have standards for doctor-patient relationships which include maintaining confidentiality. In some cases the physician-patient privilege is legally protected. These practices are in place to protect the dignity of patients, and to ensure that patients will feel free to reveal complete and accurate information required for them to receive the correct treatment.[9]

[edit] Workplace

Employees typically must relinquish some of their privacy while at the workplace, but how much they must do so can be a contentious issue. Employers might choose to monitor employees activities using surveillance cameras, or may wish to record employees activities while using company owned computers or telephones.[10][11]

[edit] Europe

The EU Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data limits and regulates the collection of personal information on individuals, including workers. Firms that monitor employees' use of e-mail, the internet or phones as part of their business practice, and do not tell employees or have not obtained employee consent to do so, can in most cases be sued under Article 8 the European Convention on Human Rights which provides for the right to respect for his private and family life. On the other hand, although EU law is clear that e-mail interception is illegal, the law is not totally clear as to whether companies may prohibit employees from sending private e-mails.[12]

[edit] United States

In the United States, the situation is quite different. In 2005 for example, a survey of more than 500 U.S. companies found that over half had disciplined and about one in four employers had terminated (fired) an employee for "inappropriate" use of the internet, such as sending an inappropriate e-mail message to a client or supervisor, neglecting work while chatting with friends, or viewing pornography during work hours.[13]

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

[edit] Privacy laws

Main article: Civil liberties

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

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

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). Privacy is regulated in the U.S. by the Privacy Act of 1974, and various state laws.

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. In Australia there is the Privacy Act 1988.

If the privacy of an individual is breached, the individual may bring a lawsuit asking for monetary damages. However, in the United Kingdom, some recent cases involving celebrities such as David Beckham, have resulted in defeat as the information has been determined in the courts to be in the public interest.[14] In the United States, the right of freedom of speech granted in the First Amendment have limited the effects of lawsuits for breach of privacy.

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

In the United States, Federal law regulating communications carriers prohibits the disclosure of customer phone records.[15] Breaches of this law in the private sector were found to be common, with sales of call detail information becoming the subject of Congressional inquiry. More recently, it has been revealed that the United States National Security Agency has been warehousing the call detail information of billions of individual phone calls for pattern analysis. Whether this was done in violation of law or through powers granted by Congress as part of the broader "War on Terrorism" is the subject of debate.

[edit] Bodies and organizations

[edit] Limits on privacy

There have been court cases limiting an individual's right to privacy:

[edit] Canada

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

[edit] United States

It is said that a right to privacy is inherent in many of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, such as the 3rd amendment, the 4th amendment's search and seizure limits, and the 5th amendment's self-incrimination limit.[16] However, the word "privacy" is actually never used in the text of the US Constitution,[17] or any of its amendments[18][19] and various court cases have set limits on privacy rights in the US.

In a unanimous 2005 ruling, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire ruled: "A generalized concern for personal privacy is insufficient to meet the state's burden of demonstrating the existence of a sufficiently compelling reason to prevent public access." The Court ruled that financial information people disclose in divorce cases is not entitled to sweeping privacy protections. The court said the right of access to court proceedings and records predates both the state and federal constitutions. The decision relied heavily on the New Hampshire Constitution, which says power comes from the people. "To that end, the public's right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted," the Constitution says. The Associated Press v. New Hampshire (2005).

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

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

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

[edit] See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=BwQBT2Mr1YoC&pg=PA188&dq=physical+privacy&sig=dvybgqk6wfkf_xGimY8lvtWVV3I Managing Privacy: Information Technology and Corporate America By H. Jeff
  2. ^ Fixing the Fourth Amendment with trade secret law: A response to Kyllo v. United States | Georgetown Law Journal | Find Articles at BNET.com
  3. ^ Security Recommendations For Stalking Victims
  4. ^ FindLaw's Writ - Amar: Executive Privilege
  5. ^ Fixing the Fourth Amendment with trade secret law: A response to Kyllo v. United States | Georgetown Law Journal | Find Articles at BNET.com
  6. ^ Research explores data mining, privacy - USATODAY.com
  7. ^ In this data-mining society, privacy advocates shudder
  8. ^ U.S. Demands Google Web Data | Information Management Journal | Find Articles at BNET.com
  9. ^ Doctor-Patient Confidentiality: Encyclopedia of Everyday Law
  10. ^ Howstuffworks "How Workplace Surveillance Works"
  11. ^ Electronic surveillance in the workplace
  12. ^ Sylvia Mercado Kierkegaard (2005) Reading Your Keystroke: Whose Mail Is It? Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Publisher: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, Volume 3592 / 2005, Chapter: p. 256
  13. ^ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5697883
  14. ^ Does Beckham judgment change rules?, from BBC News (retrieved 27 April 2005).
  15. ^ U.S. Code Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, Section 222
  16. ^ Things That Are Not In the U.S. Constitution - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net
  17. ^ Charters of Freedom - The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights
  18. ^ Charters of Freedom - The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights
  19. ^ Charters of Freedom - The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights

[edit] Further reading

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

[edit] External links

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