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Understanding Privacy

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Understanding Privacy

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Highlights

  • Currently, privacy is a sweeping concept, encompassing (among other things) freedom of thought, control over one's body, solitude in one's home, control over personal information, freedom from surveillance, protection of one's reputation, and protection from searches and interrogations. (Location 39)
  • author Jonathan Franzen observes, "privacy proves to be the Cheshire cat of values: not much substance, but a very winning smile."6 (Location 42)
  • According to legal theorist Robert Post, "Privacy is a value so complex, so entangled in competing and contradictory dimensions, so engorged with various and distinct meanings, that I sometimes despair whether it can be usefully addressed at all."10 (Location 44)
  • United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interferencewith his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation."21 (Location 68)
  • Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim observed in 1968, "Everywhere one turns these days it seems that the right to privacy is constantly under assault."27 (Location 79)
  • Thus privacy is a fundamental right, essential for freedom, democracy, psychological well-being, individuality, and creativity. It is proclaimed inviolable but decried as detrimental, antisocial, and even pathological. Some claim that privacy is nearing extinction; others argue that the threat to privacy is illusory.38 It seems as though everybody is talking about "privacy," but it is not clear exactly what they are talking about. (Location 92)
  • Despite promising not to sell its members' personal information to others, a company does so anyway.44 (Location 97)
  • Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblances." Wittgenstein suggests that certain concepts might not have a single common characteristic; rather, they draw from a common pool of similar elements.53 Privacy, therefore, consists of many different yet related things. (Location 131)
  • The taxonomy consists of four principal groups of activities: (1) information collection, (2) information processing, (3) information dissemination, and (4) invasion. (Location 148)
  • (1) the right to be let alone-Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis's famous formulation of the right to privacy; (2) limitedaccess to the self-the ability to shield oneself from unwanted access by others; (3) secrecy-the concealment of certain matters from others; (4) control over personal information-the ability to exercise control over information about oneself; (5) personhood-the protection of one's personality, individuality, and dignity; and (6) intimacy-control over, or limited access to, one's intimate relationships or aspects of life.1 (Location 162)
  • Warren and Brandeis's article, and their conception of privacy as the right to be let alone, profoundly influenced privacy law in the United States. (Location 212)
  • Understanding privacy as being let alone does not inform us about the matters in which we should be let alone. (Location 227)
  • E. L. Godkin, a well-known writer of the late nineteenth century, advanced an early version of the limited-access theory when he observed that "nothing is better worthy of legal protection than private life, or, in other words, the right of every man to keep his affairs to himself, and to decide for himself to what extent they shall be the subject of public observation and discussion."28 (Location 243)
  • "Privacy is not identical with control over access to oneself,because not all privacy is chosen. Some privacy is accidental, compulsory, or even involuntary."34 (Location 254)
  • Privacy involves one's relationship to society; in a world without others, claiming that one has privacy does not make much sense. (Location 257)
    • Note: Priv in relation
  • Privacy is thus viewed as coextensive with the total secrecy of information. For example, the Supreme Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence holds that matters that lack complete secrecy are not private. (Location 286)
  • Florida v. Riley, theSupreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment did not apply to surveillance of a person's property from an aircraft flying in navigable airspace because the surveillance was conducted from a public vantage point.49 (Location 292)
  • We become what we are not only by establishing boundaries around ourselves but also by a periodic opening of these boundaries to nourishment, to learning, and to intimacy. But the opening of a boundary of the self may require a boundary farther out, a boundary around the group to which we are opening ourselves.51 (Location 295)
  • "[P]rivacy might not necessarily be opposed to publicity; its function might be to provide the individual with control over certain aspects of her life."56 (Location 309)
  • According to Alan Westin, "Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others."51 (Location 313)
  • Theorists provide little elaboration on what control really entails, and it is often defined too narrowly or too broadly. Frequently, control is understood as a form of ownership of information. (Location 331)
  • Personal information is often formed in relationships with others. All parties to that relationship have some claim to the information. (Location 348)
  • personal information rarely belongs to justone individual; it is often formed in relationships with others. (Location 357)
    • Note: Key to knowsi
  • The implication is that privacy involves not only individual control, but also the social regulation of information.91 In other words, privacy is an aspect of social structure, an architecture of information regulation, not just a matter for the exercise of individual control. (Location 377)
  • infringements on privacy are "creeping"; that is, they often occur in small encroachments into our private lives. Privacy can be threatened by an aggregation of these minor encroachments, not always by a potent exercise of state or corporate power. (Location 421)
  • The theory views privacy as consisting of some form of limited access or control, and it locates the value of privacy in the development of personal relationships. (Location 438)
  • Robert Gerstein claims that "intimate relationships simply could not exist if we did not continue to insist on privacy for them."114 (Location 440)
  • In Privacy, Intimacy, and Isolation, Julie Inness advances an intimacy conception of privacy:[T]he content of privacy cannot be captured if we focus exclusively on either information, access, or intimate decisions because privacy involves all three areas.... I suggest that these apparently disparate areas are linked by the common denominator of intimacy-privacy's content covers intimate information, access, and decisions. (Location 442)
  • For Fried, "Intimacy is the sharing of information about one's actions, beliefs or emotions which one does not share with all, and which one has the right not to share with anyone. By conferring this right, privacy creates the moral capital which we spend in friendship and love."116 (Location 451)
  • "[i]ntimacy is the chief restricting concept in the definition of privacy." Intimacy is "the consciousness of the mind in its access to its own and other bodies and minds, insofar, at least, as these are generally or specifically secluded from the access of the uninvited." In other words, his definition of intimacy is a form of limited access to the self. (Location 461)
  • Intimacy captures the dimension of private life that consists of close relationships with others, but itdoes not capture the dimension of private life that is devoted to the self alone. (Location 472)
  • Under a family-resemblances approach, privacy is not defined by looking for a common denominator in all things we view under the rubric of privacy. Instead, we should understand privacy in a pluralistic manner. Privacy is not one thing, but a cluster of many distinct yet related things. (Location 511)
  • "Privacy ... is defined by its context and only obtains its true meaning within social relationships."18 (Location 601)
  • In other words, people are accountable for aspects of their private lives within certain relationships, but rarely across the board. (Location 615)
  • "The realm of the practical is the region of change," John Dewey observed, "and change is always contingent." (Location 632)
  • "Experience cannot deliver to us necessary truths; truths completely demonstrated by reason. Its conclusions are particular, not universal. 1117 We need not demand that a theory of privacy be impervious to history or culture. A theory can still be useful without being the immutable final answer. It might not work as effectively hundreds of years in the future, nor might it work in every society. But still it can help us advance in addressing problems, it can remain useful over a long period of time, and it can be applicable in many cultures. (Location 632)
  • To the Greeks and Romans, the body was an object of pride and beauty, something to be put on display. To the Christians, it was dirty and shameful, something to be hidden.51 (Location 678)
  • An orgy of sex cases populated seventeenth-century New England court records.78 (Location 712)
  • "An apartment building was a public theater. Some held forth, others squabbled, but no one had any privacy. (Location 759)
  • The study, for example, was a place where the master of the house could withdraw for quiet reading or for confidential conversations. (Location 775)
  • Privacy is a condition we create, and as such, it is dynamic and changing. (Location 824)
  • Information is public or private depending upon the purposes for which people want to conceal it and the uses that others might make of it. (Location 887)
  • Privacy is not just about what people expect but about what they desire. (Location 946)
  • Privacy is a need that arises from society's intrusiveness, and we employ the law as a tool to address the problems society creates. (Location 948)
    • Note: This
  • A theory of privacy should focus on the problems that create a desire for privacy. (Location 969)
  • Society is fraught with conflict. Individuals, institutions, and governments can all engage in actions that have problematic effects on the lives of others. Privacy concerns and protections are a reaction to these problems. (Location 972)
  • Privacy lessens a society's ability to detect and punish disobedience, which makes it harder to enforce laws and norms.22 (Location 1028)
  • When something has intrinsic value, we value it for itself. In contrast, when something has instrumental value, we value it because it furthers other important ends. (Location 1062)
  • In The Limits of Privacy, Amitai Etzioni argues that privacy is "a societal license that exempts a category of acts (including thoughts and emotions) from communal, public, and governmental scrutiny."66 (Location 1138)
  • Privacy is seen as an individual indulgence at the expense of society, a form of protection of the individual that conflicts with the greater needs of society. (Location 1148)
  • Individualism becomes not an element valued for its contributions to the common good, but a counter-value that stands in opposition to the common good. (Location 1151)
  • The value of privacy should be assessed on the basis of its contributions to society. (Location 1154)
  • "We cannot think of ourselves save as to some extent social beings. Hence we cannot separate the idea of ourselves and our own good from our idea of others and of their good."70 (Location 1157)
  • Constitutive privacy understands privacy harms as extending beyond the mental anguish caused to particular individuals; privacy harms affect the nature of society and impede individual activities that contribute to the greater social good. (Location 1166)
  • a norm is "a rule governing an individual's behavior that is diffusely enforced by third parties other than state agents by means of social sanctions." 78 (Location 1186)
  • Privacy protections emerge from society's recognition that without some limitations, the community can be suffocating to individuals. Privacy is thus a protection of the individual for the good of society. (Location 1197)
  • Ulysses desires to be self-restrained; he wants to be tied up because he knows that he might not be able to control himself. Similarly, people may recognize the value of being restrained from learning certain details about others, even if they crave gossip and would gain much pleasure from hearing it. Privacy protections represent society tying itself to the mast. These are not paternalistic restrictions imposed on a society, but ones that are self-imposed. Privacy protections promote civility. Without privacy, the friction of society might increase, potentially igniting into strife and violence. By modulating disruptive invasions, privacy can promote social order. (Location 1240)
  • The problem with discussing the value of privacy in the abstract is that privacy is a dimension of a wide variety of activities, each having a different value-and what privacy is differs in different contexts. Privacy does not possess a unitary value. (Location 1248)
  • The value of privacy emerges from the activities that it protects. (Location 1250)
  • Alan Wolfe aptly notes, "Privacy in itself is morally ambiguous. Individuals can use private spaces to develop their character, demean others, plan rebellions, collect stamps, masturbate, read Tolstoy, watch television, or do nothing."93 (Location 1253)
  • The law protects privacy in these circumstances not because the particular activities are valuable but to preserve the full range of activities that can be compromised by a particular type of privacy problem. (Location 1258)
  • Privacy, therefore, is a set of protections from a plurality of problems that all resemble each other, yet not in the same way. The value of protecting against a particular problem emerges from the activities that are implicated. (Location 1266)
  • privacy violation occurs when a certain activity causes problems that affect a private matter or activity. (Location 1283)
  • When a person consents to most of these activities, there is no privacy violation.` (Location 1287)
  • there are four basic groups of harmful activities: (1) information collection, (2) information processing, (3) information dissemination, and (4) invasion. (Location 1299)
  • From that individual, various entities (other people, businesses, and the government) collect information. The collection of this information itself can constitute a harmful activity, though not all information collection is harmful. Those that collect the data (the "data holders") then process it-that is, they store, combine, manipulate, search, and use it. I label these activities "information processing." The next step is "information dissemination," in which the data holders transfer the information to others or release the information. The general progression from information collection to processing to dissemination is the data moving further away from the individual's control. The last grouping of activities is "invasions," which involve impingements directly on the individual. Instead of the progression away from the individual, invasions progress toward theindividual and do not necessarily involve information. (Location 1301)
  • According to Julie Cohen, "[P]ervasive monitoring of every first move or false start will, at the margin, incline choices toward the bland and the mainstream." (Location 1355)
  • This phenomenon is known as the Panoptic effect from Jeremy Bentham's 1791 architectural design for a prison called the Panopticon. The prison design arrayed the inmates' cells around a central observation tower. The guards could see each prisoner from the tower, but the prisoners could not see the guards from their cells.24 In Michel Foucault's words, the cells were akin to "small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible."25 The prisoner's "only rational option" was to conform with the prison's rules because, at any moment, it was possible that he was being watched .26 Thus awareness of the possibility of surveillance can be just as inhibitory as actual surveillance. (Location 1366)
  • Rather than targeting specific information, surveillance can ensnare a significant amount of data beyond any originally sought. (Location 1372)
  • "We have said that the Fourth Amendment draws a firm line at the entrance of the house."29 (Location 1380)
  • secrecy paradigm, privacy is tantamount to complete secrecy, and a privacy violation occurs when concealed data is revealed to others. If the information is not previously hidden, then no privacy interest is implicated by the collection or dissemination of the information. (Location 1391)
  • A poem in the New York Sun in 1890 humorously criticized the census:I (Location 1419)
  • Information processing is the use, storage, and manipulation of data that has been collected. Information processing does not involve the collection of data; rather, it concerns how already-collected data is handled. I will discuss five forms of information processing: (1) aggregation, (2) identification, (3) insecurity, (4) secondary use, and (5) exclusion. (Location 1467)
  • aggregated information can reveal new facts about a person that she did not expect would be known about her when the original, isolated data was collected. (Location 1481)
  • people selectively spread around small pieces of data throughout most of their daily activities, and they have the expectation that in each disclosure, they are revealing relatively little about themselves. When these pieces are consolidated, however, the aggregator acquires much greater knowledge about the person's life. (Location 1490)
  • [D]ecisions that were formerly based on judgment and human factors are instead often decided according to prescribed formulas. In today's world, this response is often characterized by reliance on a rigid, unyielding process in which computerized information is given great weight. Facts that actually require substantial evaluation could instead be reduced to discrete entries in preassigned categories.86 (Location 1499)
  • Identity theft is the result of a larger group of problems I call "insecurity." Glitches, security lapses, abuses, and illicit uses of personal information all fall into this category. Insecurity is a problem caused by the way our information is handled and protected. (Location 1587)
  • In a handful of cases, the FTC has brought an action even before any data was improperly released. For example, the FTC contended that Microsoft's Passport, a system allowing people to use a single login password for a variety of websites, was not providing an adequate level of security despite Microsoft's promise to do so in its privacy policy. (Location 1615)
  • "[t]here must be a way for an individual to prevent information about him obtained for one purpose from being used or made available for other purposes without his consent."150 This principle, which has become known as the purpose specification principle, has been embodied in various privacy principles and laws. (Location 1626)
  • Secondary use is often referred to as "mission creep" or "data creep," which describes the gradual expansion of uses of information over time. (Location 1642)
  • Secondary use can cause problems. It involves using information in ways that a person does not consent to and that she might not find desirable. (Location 1642)
  • Privacy policies rarely specify future secondary uses, so people cannot make an informed decision about their information because they have little idea about the range of potential uses. (Location 1649)
  • The result of this asymmetrical knowledge will be one-sided bargains that benefit data processors.161 (Location 1651)
  • The secondary use of information can create problems because the information may not fit as well with the new use. When data is removed from the original context in which it was collected, it can more readily be misunderstood. (Location 1654)
  • Among the Fair Information Practices are three related principles: (1) the existence of record systems cannot be kept secret; (2) an individual must be able to "find out what information about him is in a record and how it is used"; and (3) an individual must be able to "correct or amend a record of identifiable information about him."166 (Location 1668)
  • Canada's Federal Court of Appeal declared that people "have a legitimate interest in knowing what personal information the state possesses about them" and should be "able to verify the accuracy of personal information and if possible that it was legally obtained."169 (Location 1675)
  • Three may keep a secret, if two are dead.-Benjamin Franklin178 (Location 1707)
  • The third-party doctrine therefore places an extensive amount of personal information outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment.19'The third-party doctrine is based on the secrecy paradigm: when others know the information, it is no longer completely secret. But the fact that the information is known to third parties would not be relevant to the Court's analysis if the harm were understood to be a breach of confidentiality. (Location 1744)

public: true

title: Understanding Privacy longtitle: Understanding Privacy author: Daniel J. Solove url: , source: kindle last_highlight: 2019-06-18 type: books tags:

Understanding Privacy

rw-book-cover

Metadata

  • Author: [[Daniel J. Solove]]
  • Full Title: Understanding Privacy
  • Category: #books

Highlights

  • Currently, privacy is a sweeping concept, encompassing (among other things) freedom of thought, control over one's body, solitude in one's home, control over personal information, freedom from surveillance, protection of one's reputation, and protection from searches and interrogations. (Location 39)
    • Tags: [[blue]]
  • author Jonathan Franzen observes, "privacy proves to be the Cheshire cat of values: not much substance, but a very winning smile."6 (Location 42)
    • Tags: [[blue]]
  • According to legal theorist Robert Post, "Privacy is a value so complex, so entangled in competing and contradictory dimensions, so engorged with various and distinct meanings, that I sometimes despair whether it can be usefully addressed at all."10 (Location 44)
    • Tags: [[blue]]
  • United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interferencewith his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation."21 (Location 68)
  • Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim observed in 1968, "Everywhere one turns these days it seems that the right to privacy is constantly under assault."27 (Location 79)
  • Thus privacy is a fundamental right, essential for freedom, democracy, psychological well-being, individuality, and creativity. It is proclaimed inviolable but decried as detrimental, antisocial, and even pathological. Some claim that privacy is nearing extinction; others argue that the threat to privacy is illusory.38 It seems as though everybody is talking about "privacy," but it is not clear exactly what they are talking about. (Location 92)
  • Despite promising not to sell its members' personal information to others, a company does so anyway.44 (Location 97)
  • Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblances." Wittgenstein suggests that certain concepts might not have a single common characteristic; rather, they draw from a common pool of similar elements.53 Privacy, therefore, consists of many different yet related things. (Location 131)
  • The taxonomy consists of four principal groups of activities: (1) information collection, (2) information processing, (3) information dissemination, and (4) invasion. (Location 148)
  • (1) the right to be let alone-Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis's famous formulation of the right to privacy; (2) limitedaccess to the self-the ability to shield oneself from unwanted access by others; (3) secrecy-the concealment of certain matters from others; (4) control over personal information-the ability to exercise control over information about oneself; (5) personhood-the protection of one's personality, individuality, and dignity; and (6) intimacy-control over, or limited access to, one's intimate relationships or aspects of life.1 (Location 162)
  • Warren and Brandeis's article, and their conception of privacy as the right to be let alone, profoundly influenced privacy law in the United States. (Location 212)
  • Understanding privacy as being let alone does not inform us about the matters in which we should be let alone. (Location 227)
  • E. L. Godkin, a well-known writer of the late nineteenth century, advanced an early version of the limited-access theory when he observed that "nothing is better worthy of legal protection than private life, or, in other words, the right of every man to keep his affairs to himself, and to decide for himself to what extent they shall be the subject of public observation and discussion."28 (Location 243)
  • "Privacy is not identical with control over access to oneself,because not all privacy is chosen. Some privacy is accidental, compulsory, or even involuntary."34 (Location 254)
  • Privacy involves one's relationship to society; in a world without others, claiming that one has privacy does not make much sense. (Location 257)
    • Note: Priv in relation
  • Privacy is thus viewed as coextensive with the total secrecy of information. For example, the Supreme Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence holds that matters that lack complete secrecy are not private. (Location 286)
  • Florida v. Riley, theSupreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment did not apply to surveillance of a person's property from an aircraft flying in navigable airspace because the surveillance was conducted from a public vantage point.49 (Location 292)
  • We become what we are not only by establishing boundaries around ourselves but also by a periodic opening of these boundaries to nourishment, to learning, and to intimacy. But the opening of a boundary of the self may require a boundary farther out, a boundary around the group to which we are opening ourselves.51 (Location 295)
  • "[P]rivacy might not necessarily be opposed to publicity; its function might be to provide the individual with control over certain aspects of her life."56 (Location 309)
  • According to Alan Westin, "Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others."51 (Location 313)
  • Theorists provide little elaboration on what control really entails, and it is often defined too narrowly or too broadly. Frequently, control is understood as a form of ownership of information. (Location 331)
  • Personal information is often formed in relationships with others. All parties to that relationship have some claim to the information. (Location 348)
  • personal information rarely belongs to justone individual; it is often formed in relationships with others. (Location 357)
    • Note: Key to knowsi
  • The implication is that privacy involves not only individual control, but also the social regulation of information.91 In other words, privacy is an aspect of social structure, an architecture of information regulation, not just a matter for the exercise of individual control. (Location 377)
  • infringements on privacy are "creeping"; that is, they often occur in small encroachments into our private lives. Privacy can be threatened by an aggregation of these minor encroachments, not always by a potent exercise of state or corporate power. (Location 421)
  • The theory views privacy as consisting of some form of limited access or control, and it locates the value of privacy in the development of personal relationships. (Location 438)
  • Robert Gerstein claims that "intimate relationships simply could not exist if we did not continue to insist on privacy for them."114 (Location 440)
  • In Privacy, Intimacy, and Isolation, Julie Inness advances an intimacy conception of privacy:[T]he content of privacy cannot be captured if we focus exclusively on either information, access, or intimate decisions because privacy involves all three areas.... I suggest that these apparently disparate areas are linked by the common denominator of intimacy-privacy's content covers intimate information, access, and decisions. (Location 442)
  • For Fried, "Intimacy is the sharing of information about one's actions, beliefs or emotions which one does not share with all, and which one has the right not to share with anyone. By conferring this right, privacy creates the moral capital which we spend in friendship and love."116 (Location 451)
  • "[i]ntimacy is the chief restricting concept in the definition of privacy." Intimacy is "the consciousness of the mind in its access to its own and other bodies and minds, insofar, at least, as these are generally or specifically secluded from the access of the uninvited." In other words, his definition of intimacy is a form of limited access to the self. (Location 461)
  • Intimacy captures the dimension of private life that consists of close relationships with others, but itdoes not capture the dimension of private life that is devoted to the self alone. (Location 472)
  • Under a family-resemblances approach, privacy is not defined by looking for a common denominator in all things we view under the rubric of privacy. Instead, we should understand privacy in a pluralistic manner. Privacy is not one thing, but a cluster of many distinct yet related things. (Location 511)
  • "Privacy ... is defined by its context and only obtains its true meaning within social relationships."18 (Location 601)
  • In other words, people are accountable for aspects of their private lives within certain relationships, but rarely across the board. (Location 615)
  • "The realm of the practical is the region of change," John Dewey observed, "and change is always contingent." (Location 632)
  • "Experience cannot deliver to us necessary truths; truths completely demonstrated by reason. Its conclusions are particular, not universal. 1117 We need not demand that a theory of privacy be impervious to history or culture. A theory can still be useful without being the immutable final answer. It might not work as effectively hundreds of years in the future, nor might it work in every society. But still it can help us advance in addressing problems, it can remain useful over a long period of time, and it can be applicable in many cultures. (Location 632)
  • To the Greeks and Romans, the body was an object of pride and beauty, something to be put on display. To the Christians, it was dirty and shameful, something to be hidden.51 (Location 678)
  • An orgy of sex cases populated seventeenth-century New England court records.78 (Location 712)
  • "An apartment building was a public theater. Some held forth, others squabbled, but no one had any privacy. (Location 759)
  • The study, for example, was a place where the master of the house could withdraw for quiet reading or for confidential conversations. (Location 775)
  • Privacy is a condition we create, and as such, it is dynamic and changing. (Location 824)
  • Information is public or private depending upon the purposes for which people want to conceal it and the uses that others might make of it. (Location 887)
  • Privacy is not just about what people expect but about what they desire. (Location 946)
  • Privacy is a need that arises from society's intrusiveness, and we employ the law as a tool to address the problems society creates. (Location 948)
    • Note: This
  • A theory of privacy should focus on the problems that create a desire for privacy. (Location 969)
  • Society is fraught with conflict. Individuals, institutions, and governments can all engage in actions that have problematic effects on the lives of others. Privacy concerns and protections are a reaction to these problems. (Location 972)
  • Privacy lessens a society's ability to detect and punish disobedience, which makes it harder to enforce laws and norms.22 (Location 1028)
  • When something has intrinsic value, we value it for itself. In contrast, when something has instrumental value, we value it because it furthers other important ends. (Location 1062)
  • In The Limits of Privacy, Amitai Etzioni argues that privacy is "a societal license that exempts a category of acts (including thoughts and emotions) from communal, public, and governmental scrutiny."66 (Location 1138)
  • Privacy is seen as an individual indulgence at the expense of society, a form of protection of the individual that conflicts with the greater needs of society. (Location 1148)
  • Individualism becomes not an element valued for its contributions to the common good, but a counter-value that stands in opposition to the common good. (Location 1151)
  • The value of privacy should be assessed on the basis of its contributions to society. (Location 1154)
  • "We cannot think of ourselves save as to some extent social beings. Hence we cannot separate the idea of ourselves and our own good from our idea of others and of their good."70 (Location 1157)
  • Constitutive privacy understands privacy harms as extending beyond the mental anguish caused to particular individuals; privacy harms affect the nature of society and impede individual activities that contribute to the greater social good. (Location 1166)
  • a norm is "a rule governing an individual's behavior that is diffusely enforced by third parties other than state agents by means of social sanctions." 78 (Location 1186)
  • Privacy protections emerge from society's recognition that without some limitations, the community can be suffocating to individuals. Privacy is thus a protection of the individual for the good of society. (Location 1197)
  • Ulysses desires to be self-restrained; he wants to be tied up because he knows that he might not be able to control himself. Similarly, people may recognize the value of being restrained from learning certain details about others, even if they crave gossip and would gain much pleasure from hearing it. Privacy protections represent society tying itself to the mast. These are not paternalistic restrictions imposed on a society, but ones that are self-imposed. Privacy protections promote civility. Without privacy, the friction of society might increase, potentially igniting into strife and violence. By modulating disruptive invasions, privacy can promote social order. (Location 1240)
  • The problem with discussing the value of privacy in the abstract is that privacy is a dimension of a wide variety of activities, each having a different value-and what privacy is differs in different contexts. Privacy does not possess a unitary value. (Location 1248)
  • The value of privacy emerges from the activities that it protects. (Location 1250)
  • Alan Wolfe aptly notes, "Privacy in itself is morally ambiguous. Individuals can use private spaces to develop their character, demean others, plan rebellions, collect stamps, masturbate, read Tolstoy, watch television, or do nothing."93 (Location 1253)
  • The law protects privacy in these circumstances not because the particular activities are valuable but to preserve the full range of activities that can be compromised by a particular type of privacy problem. (Location 1258)
  • Privacy, therefore, is a set of protections from a plurality of problems that all resemble each other, yet not in the same way. The value of protecting against a particular problem emerges from the activities that are implicated. (Location 1266)
  • privacy violation occurs when a certain activity causes problems that affect a private matter or activity. (Location 1283)
  • When a person consents to most of these activities, there is no privacy violation.` (Location 1287)
  • there are four basic groups of harmful activities: (1) information collection, (2) information processing, (3) information dissemination, and (4) invasion. (Location 1299)
  • From that individual, various entities (other people, businesses, and the government) collect information. The collection of this information itself can constitute a harmful activity, though not all information collection is harmful. Those that collect the data (the "data holders") then process it-that is, they store, combine, manipulate, search, and use it. I label these activities "information processing." The next step is "information dissemination," in which the data holders transfer the information to others or release the information. The general progression from information collection to processing to dissemination is the data moving further away from the individual's control. The last grouping of activities is "invasions," which involve impingements directly on the individual. Instead of the progression away from the individual, invasions progress toward theindividual and do not necessarily involve information. (Location 1301)
  • According to Julie Cohen, "[P]ervasive monitoring of every first move or false start will, at the margin, incline choices toward the bland and the mainstream." (Location 1355)
  • This phenomenon is known as the Panoptic effect from Jeremy Bentham's 1791 architectural design for a prison called the Panopticon. The prison design arrayed the inmates' cells around a central observation tower. The guards could see each prisoner from the tower, but the prisoners could not see the guards from their cells.24 In Michel Foucault's words, the cells were akin to "small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible."25 The prisoner's "only rational option" was to conform with the prison's rules because, at any moment, it was possible that he was being watched .26 Thus awareness of the possibility of surveillance can be just as inhibitory as actual surveillance. (Location 1366)
  • Rather than targeting specific information, surveillance can ensnare a significant amount of data beyond any originally sought. (Location 1372)
  • "We have said that the Fourth Amendment draws a firm line at the entrance of the house."29 (Location 1380)
  • secrecy paradigm, privacy is tantamount to complete secrecy, and a privacy violation occurs when concealed data is revealed to others. If the information is not previously hidden, then no privacy interest is implicated by the collection or dissemination of the information. (Location 1391)
  • A poem in the New York Sun in 1890 humorously criticized the census:I (Location 1419)
  • Information processing is the use, storage, and manipulation of data that has been collected. Information processing does not involve the collection of data; rather, it concerns how already-collected data is handled. I will discuss five forms of information processing: (1) aggregation, (2) identification, (3) insecurity, (4) secondary use, and (5) exclusion. (Location 1467)
  • aggregated information can reveal new facts about a person that she did not expect would be known about her when the original, isolated data was collected. (Location 1481)
  • people selectively spread around small pieces of data throughout most of their daily activities, and they have the expectation that in each disclosure, they are revealing relatively little about themselves. When these pieces are consolidated, however, the aggregator acquires much greater knowledge about the person's life. (Location 1490)
  • [D]ecisions that were formerly based on judgment and human factors are instead often decided according to prescribed formulas. In today's world, this response is often characterized by reliance on a rigid, unyielding process in which computerized information is given great weight. Facts that actually require substantial evaluation could instead be reduced to discrete entries in preassigned categories.86 (Location 1499)
  • Identity theft is the result of a larger group of problems I call "insecurity." Glitches, security lapses, abuses, and illicit uses of personal information all fall into this category. Insecurity is a problem caused by the way our information is handled and protected. (Location 1587)
  • In a handful of cases, the FTC has brought an action even before any data was improperly released. For example, the FTC contended that Microsoft's Passport, a system allowing people to use a single login password for a variety of websites, was not providing an adequate level of security despite Microsoft's promise to do so in its privacy policy. (Location 1615)
  • "[t]here must be a way for an individual to prevent information about him obtained for one purpose from being used or made available for other purposes without his consent."150 This principle, which has become known as the purpose specification principle, has been embodied in various privacy principles and laws. (Location 1626)
  • Secondary use is often referred to as "mission creep" or "data creep," which describes the gradual expansion of uses of information over time. (Location 1642)
  • Secondary use can cause problems. It involves using information in ways that a person does not consent to and that she might not find desirable. (Location 1642)
  • Privacy policies rarely specify future secondary uses, so people cannot make an informed decision about their information because they have little idea about the range of potential uses. (Location 1649)
  • The result of this asymmetrical knowledge will be one-sided bargains that benefit data processors.161 (Location 1651)
  • The secondary use of information can create problems because the information may not fit as well with the new use. When data is removed from the original context in which it was collected, it can more readily be misunderstood. (Location 1654)
  • Among the Fair Information Practices are three related principles: (1) the existence of record systems cannot be kept secret; (2) an individual must be able to "find out what information about him is in a record and how it is used"; and (3) an individual must be able to "correct or amend a record of identifiable information about him."166 (Location 1668)
  • Canada's Federal Court of Appeal declared that people "have a legitimate interest in knowing what personal information the state possesses about them" and should be "able to verify the accuracy of personal information and if possible that it was legally obtained."169 (Location 1675)
  • Three may keep a secret, if two are dead.-Benjamin Franklin178 (Location 1707)
  • The third-party doctrine therefore places an extensive amount of personal information outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment.19'The third-party doctrine is based on the secrecy paradigm: when others know the information, it is no longer completely secret. But the fact that the information is known to third parties would not be relevant to the Court's analysis if the harm were understood to be a breach of confidentiality. (Location 1744)