Privacy Issues

5 Key excerpts on "Privacy Issues"

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  eBook - ePub

  Science and Technology Ethics

  • Raymond E. E.Spier(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Privacy is a fundamental right of individuals and is an essential condition for the exercise of self-determination. The ability to control personal information is an important factor in sustaining privacy. Organizations are increasingly computerizing the processing of personal information. This may be without the consent or knowledge of the individuals concerned. There has been a growth in databases holding personal and other sensitive information in multiple formats of text, pictures and sound. The scale and type of data collected and the scale and speed of data exchange have changed with the advent of computers. The potential to breach people’s privacy at less cost and to greater advantage continues to increase.

  However, sometimes individuals have to give up some of their personal privacy in order to achieve some overall social benefit. For example, a social services department might hold sensitive information about individuals that provides an accurate profile of individual tendencies, convictions and so on. The sharing of this data with, for example, the local education authority in cases of child sex offenders living in the area might be considered morally justified even though it might breach individual privacy.

  Computer privacy is a new twist on an old ethical problem and involves issues which have not been previously raised or cannot be predicted. For example, advances in genetic data have led to some interesting ethical questions as it can accurately define genetic relatives and thus establish hereditary traits and diseases. Individuals have certain rights to how and where that information is distributed but in order to exercise those rights they will undoubtedly learn of their genetic profiles – and that is the new twist. Knowledge of one’s genetic profile will undoubtedly affect the individual’s self-perception, selfesteem and lifestyle. Thus privacy in this situation must also include an individual’s right not to know.

  Balancing the rights and interests of different parties in a free society is difficult. The acceptable balance will be specific to the context of a particular relationship and will be dependent upon trust between concerned parties and subscription to the principle of informed consent. This balance might incur the problem of protecting individual privacy while satisfying government and business needs. Such problems are indicative of a society that is becoming increasingly technologically dependent.

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  Improving Stability in Developing Nations through Automation 2006

  • Peter Kopacek(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Elsevier Science

    (Publisher)

  Part 4 Privacy, Security and Ethical Issues Current Ethical Scruples Concerning Information Engineering Tibor Vámos [email protected] Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences H-1111 Budapest, Lágymányosi u. 11., Hungary Abstract In the irresistible emergence of e-society the individual is represented by his/her electronic identity. The theoretical and practical pros and cons of electronic identity are treated, the harmonization and contradictions of privacy and security interests, and their relationship to the principles of liberty and solidarity, individual and society. The issues of democratic control and influence to further developments of democracy are discussed with a special focus on the ethical duties and possible actions of the engineering community, with some references to the dramatic events of global terrorism, extreme fundamentalism and to the local efforts of Hungarian Information technology. Keywords Social behavioural sciences social impact linguistic support 1 INTRODUCTION Through out the ages, no responsible professional activity has existed without scruples. Though, in our age unscrupulous behaviour is, in technologically advanced countries, less of a danger than it used to be earlier, even in the 20 th century. The other addendum is the requisite of the concept of professional responsibility; the quality of being scrupulous, scrupulous in his/her science, personal competence and especially in considering the consequences of his/her results. The characteristic difference in our age is the ubiquity of science and science-originated technology in every relation of human life and the special role of information, disseminated and transmitted globally, as the fundamental vehicle in human action and society organization

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  Understanding Privacy

  • Daniel J. Solove(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  6

  Privacy: A New Understanding

  For quite a long time, the concept of privacy has been a source of chagrin. Despite the profound importance and increasing prevalence of Privacy Issues, efforts to conceptualize privacy have been plagued by a curse of difficulties. Attempts to locate a common denominator for the manifold things that constitute privacy have proven unsatisfying. Conceptions that attempt to locate the core or essence of privacy have been too broad or too narrow. Despite many good insights, the philosophical discourse about privacy has left a sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction.

  Yet we need to conceptualize privacy because it affects the way we craft legal solutions to particular problems. Even if we eschew attempts to conceptualize privacy, we are relying in part on implicit understandings of privacy whenever we discuss it. Judges, legislators, policymakers, and commentators all have some notion of privacy in mind when they address Privacy Issues. The way we conceptualize privacy is of paramount importance for the information age because we are beset with a number of complex privacy problems that cause great disruption to numerous important activities of high social value.

  Therefore, I have proposed a new way to conceptualize privacy. Under my conception, we should understand privacy as a set of protections against a plurality of distinct but related problems. These problems are not related by a common denominator or core element. Instead, each problem has elements in common with others, yet not necessarily the same element–they share family resemblances with each other. We label the whole cluster “privacy,” but this term is useful primarily as a shorthand way of describing the cluster. Beyond that, it is more fruitful to discuss and analyze each type of problem specifically.

  I am not arguing that we must always avoid referring to privacy in the abstract; sometimes it is more efficient to do so. Rather, such abstract references to privacy often fail to be useful when we need to conceptualize privacy to solve legal and policy problems. By shifting the focus to a plurality of related problems, we can better understand what is at stake in particular situations. We can better recognize each situation for what it is rather than conflating it with other situations.

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  Legislating Privacy

  Technology, Social Values, and Public Policy

  • Priscilla M. Regan(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • The University of North Carolina Press

    (Publisher)

  Privacy as a Philosophical and Legal Concept

  Throughout American history and in philosophical and legal discussions, privacy has been viewed as important to the individual, as some type of boundary that shields the individual from others. The importance of privacy is rooted in liberal thinking — privacy inheres in the individual as an individual and is important to the individual primarily for self-development or for the establishment of intimate or human relationships. Given that the philosophical justification for privacy rests largely on its importance to the individual as an individual, policy discussions about protecting privacy focus on the goal of protecting an individual value or interest. The result has been an emphasis on an atomistic individual and the legal protection of his or her rights. This line of discourse has served to weaken the concept of privacy as a policy goal. But it is important to examine the evolution of the emphasis on the importance of privacy to the individual and the lack of development of a broader social importance to privacy.

  Philosophical arguments about privacy’s importance are paralleled by views on privacy in common law and constitutional law. Anglo-American legal thinking, especially constitutional thinking, places the individual at the center of concern. In the development of privacy law, the individual is indeed at the center, but the development of legal doctrines to protect individual privacy has been slow and fragmented.

  In order to understand the philosophical and legal context that provides the backdrop for the discussion of Privacy Issues in the three privacy and technology areas examined in this book, this chapter briefly reviews the philosophical and legal development of a right to privacy. The intention here is not to provide an exhaustive discussion of philosophical and legal bases of privacy but to understand how philosophical and legal thinking shaped the definition of privacy as a value at the time that public and congressional attention turned to issues of privacy invasions.

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  Privacy, Trust and Social Media

  • Joanna Paliszkiewicz, Kuanchin Chen, Jerzy Gołuchowski, Joanna Paliszkiewicz, Kuanchin Chen, Jerzy Gołuchowski(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  2016 ).

  Likewise, research into privacy-enhancing technologies has mainly focused on the technical aspects. However, successful implementation and adoption of solutions require a deep understanding of the perceptions and behaviors of real and potential users of the technology. The IS domain has the appropriate methods and knowledge to deal with such questions. Therefore, Harborth and Pape (2018) examined real users of an existing system, and their results indicate that the underlying rationale for technology use models relates to privacy-enhancing technologies. However, the newly introduced variables, perceived anonymity and trust, significantly improved the explanation of the structure, and such a model should be considered in future work with comparable research problems.

  Conclusion

  Guaranteeing the right to privacy in the era of artificial intelligence means a commitment to allowing citizens to exercise even greater control over their private life, including the information about themselves and their families. Nowadays, thanks to developing artificial intelligence, commercial operations, as well as private individuals, have the same, or even greater, opportunity to interfere with the privacy of others as state structures. Therefore, the protection of the right to privacy is of great importance. Research has shown that users of the web have concerns about its use. They do not feel safe and as a consequence their trust in messages on the network decreases. Robust privacy laws are essential to building and maintaining trust in a digital world. It is obviously important to achieve a balance between the proper protection of private life and supporting the development of new technologies and innovative practices. However, the current state of legal regulations cannot be considered with optimism in this respect. There are general regulations on the right to privacy in the EU structures, the outdated e-privacy directive, as well as many non-binding documents directly related to artificial intelligence, which are to some extent related to the issue of the right to privacy. Users’ concerns also arise when it is problematic to determine who is responsible for violating the privacy of an individual through an AI system. Further research requires an emphasis on political cooperation and rapid response to the changing reality and the galloping development of artificial intelligence. Future work may build on relationships and extensions to the internet privacy and trust model. In addition, new privacy and technology variables can be added. For the next step, it would be interesting to examine non-Instagram/Facebook perceptions of privacy and trust on the internet and compare the results with real users. This could be a real contribution to strengthening the personal right to privacy at a time when the collection of personal data on the internet is only increasing.

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