Privacy Rights and Democracy: A Contradiction in Terms?

There is widespread disagreement about the terms in which privacy ought to be defined and consequently about the scope of the concept. It is said to lack coherence, leading some to question its value for practical reasoning. In this essay I argue that disagreement about privacy is, at least in part, a manifestation of disagreement about more general moral-political values that the concept of privacy is invoked to serve. Commitment to these values will lead not only to differing views on the value of privacy, but also as to the terms in which it ought to be defined. Locating accounts of privacy in political theory will e

Minds and Machines, 2011

This paper draws upon contemporary feminist philosophy in order to consider the changing meaning of privacy and its relationship to identity, both online and offline. For example, privacy is now viewed by European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as a right, which when breached can harm us by undermining our ability to maintain social relations. I briefly outline the meaning of privacy in common law and under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to show the relevance of contemporary feminist thought, in particular the image of selfhood that stresses its relationality. I argue that the meaning of privacy is in the process of altering as a result of a number of contingent factors including both changes in technology, particularly computer mediated communication (CMC), and changes in the status of women. This latter point can be illustrated by the feminist critique of the traditional reluctance of the liberal state to interfere with violence and injustice within the ''privacy'' of the home. In asking the question: ''how is the meaning of ''privacy'' changing?'' I consider not only contemporary legal case law but also Thomas Nagel's influential philosophical analysis of privacy. Nagel's position is useful because of the detail with which he outlines what privacy used to mean, whilst bemoaning its passing. I agree with his view that its meaning is changing but am critical of his perspective. In particular, I challenge his claim regarding the traditional ''neutrality of language'' and consider it in the context of online identity.

Protecting the Genetic Self from Biometric Threats

This chapter examines not only the history of the term privacy but also its international recognition as a fully protected right. Given the wide array of definitions of privacy, it can be said that the term seeks its identity. Depending on time and space, this right has had various traits, beyond the obstacles of a strict definition. The aspects or features of the term are those that lead to the necessity of its international recognition and protection, especially in the present digital and technological environment, where its foundation is reconsidered and internationally protected in an effective way.

The Crit a Critical Legal Studies Journal, 2011

Different cultures produce different privacies -both architecturally and legally speaking -as well as in their different legal architectures. The 'Simms principle' can be harnessed to produce semi-constitutional privacy protection through statute; building on the work already done in 'bringing rights home' through the Human Rights Act 1998. This article attempts to set out a notion of semi-entrenched legal rights, which will help to better portray the case for architectural, constitutional privacy, following an examination of the problems with a legal narrative for privacy rights as they currently exist. I will use parallel ideas from the works of W.B. Yeats and Costas Douzinas to explore and critique these assumptions and arguments. The ultimate object of this piece is an argument for the creation of a legal instrument, namely an Act of Parliament, in the United Kingdom; the purpose of which is to protect certain notions of personal privacy from politically-motivated erosion and intrusion.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2014

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them. contents Acknowledgements .

"Media and Communication", 2020

While communication and media studies tend to define privacy with reference to data security, current processes of datafication and commodification substantially transform ways of how people act in increasingly dense communicative networks. This begs for advancing research on the flow of individual and organizational information considering its relational, con-textual and, in consequence, political dimensions. Privacy, understood as the control over the flow of individual or group information in relation to communicative actions of others, frames the articles assembled in this thematic issue. These contributions focus on theoretical challenges of contemporary communication and media privacy research as well as on structural privacy conditions and people's mundane communicative practices underlining inherent political aspect. They highlight how particular acts of doing privacy are grounded in citizen agency realized in datafied environments. Overall, this collection of articles unfolds the concept of 'Politics of Privacy' in diverse ways, contributing to an emerging body of communication and media research.

Social Dimensions of Privacy, Cambridge University Press, 2015

Must privacy and freedom of expression conflict? To witness recent debates in Britain, you might think so. Anything other than self-regulation by the press is met by howls of anguish from journalists across the political spectrum, to the effect that efforts to protect people’s privacy will threaten press freedom, promote self-censorship and prevent the press from fulfilling its vital function of informing the public and keeping a watchful eye on the activities and antics of the powerful.[Brown, 2009, 13 January] Effective protections for privacy, from such a perspective, inevitably pose a threat to democratic government via the constraints that they place on the press. Such concerns with privacy must be taken seriously by anyone who cares about democratic government, and the freedom, equality and wellbeing of individuals. But if it is one thing to say that privacy and freedom of expression cannot always be fully protected, it is another to suppose that protections for the one must always come at the expense of the other. Hence, the paper concludes, we should distinguish the claims of individuals to publish reports about their lives – even if this necessarily involves revealing the private lives of others – from journalistic claims to publish information about the sex lives of consenting adults. I will start by briefly situating my argument within a democratic approach to privacy, before using the “outing” of Oliver Sipple to examine people’s claims to privacy and their implications for freedom of expression and of the press. I will be assuming that some forms of privacy are legitimate, in order to focus more closely on the question of what information, if any, people may keep to themselves.

American Philosophical Association Newletter on Philosophy and Law, 2013

The American Philosophical Association. A Symposium on the work of Anita L. Allen. A. Introduction Anita Allen's Uneasy Access: Privacy for Women in a Free Society was one of the first books to try to work out a feminist perspective on privacy, given long-standing feminist doubts and ambivalences about its effects on women. 1 In contrast to a philosophical literature which largely ignored feminist concerns with privacy, Allen set out to consider privacy from an explicitly feminist perspective, drawing on philosophical and American legal debates in order to do so. The result was a highly readable book, which provided an excellent survey of competing attempts to describe the nature and value of privacy, and a helpful account of their relative strengths and weaknesses. Arguing that feminists should revise, not reject, privacy, Allen showed that the ability to restrict unwanted access to our bodies and thoughts is essential to freedom for women, as for men. I discovered Allen's book as a graduate student at MIT, working on what I called 'A democratic conception of privacy', in response to feminist criticism of privacy. Allen's guided tour through competing ways of defining privacy saved me from drowning in an overwhelming, and rather bewildering, literature, whose consequences for feminist concerns were rarely clear. Allen's frank defence of abortion rights from a privacy perspective was also welcome, with its recognition that children necessarily eat into parental time and will do so even if parenting occurs on a more sexually egalitarian basis than at present. Above all, I admired, and continue to admire, Allen's treatment of privacy for women in public, with its sensitive and thoughtful effort to understand why, and how,

This paper discusses the results of the research project 'Privacy and Anonymity on the Net (PRIANO, 2014–2016)', which tries to chart the fate of online privacy in Finland after the Snowden revelations and during the ongoing law-making process. From interviews (n = 17) conducted with Finnish experts, we identified three frames of opinion (national security, business, and fundamental rights) and analysed their values and strategies of justification. I also conducted a survey (n = 1000) on Finns' opinions about online privacy and compared the results with those of similar surveys in the U.S. and Estonia. The survey findings indicated that Finnish internet users still value privacy. Finally, in the conclusive part, I reflect on the empirical results based on the theoretical literature on surveillance capitalism and the fate of social trust and democracy.

William and Mary Law Review, 1999

Law. This Essay is a revised version of a paper presented at the conference "Reconstructing Liberalism," sponsored by The Institute of Bill of Rights Law and the William and Mary Department of Philosophy, held at The College of William & Mary School of Law, April 3-4, 1998. I am indebted to conference participants for helpful comments, and especially to Cynthia Ward, Kathryn Abrams, Katherine Franke, and my co-panelists Anita Allen and Neal Devins. Jim Fleming gave valuable comments on several drafts. I also benefitted from helpful discussion with my colleagues Eric Freedman and Norm Silber. Thanks to Suzanne Mikos, Bram Weber, and law librarian Connie Lenz for valuable research assistance, and to Hofstra University School of Law for generous research support.