What are we actually giving up when we lose our privacy?
The topic of privacy initially received public interest in 1890, when Warren and Brandeis, two Boston lawyers, published their article “The Right to Privacy.” Their essay argued that privacy should be defined as an independent right with protection under the law. According to them, political, social and technological changes in society, required the law to define a new right, in this case — the right to privacy. At the time of their writing, two social phenomena — the proliferation of gossip columns in local papers and the use of new camera technologies — had introduced a new level of intrusiveness into people’s lives, sparking concerns over privacy breaches.
Warren and Brandeis defined the right to privacy as the right to be let alone. And while many different definitions have been suggested since then, many believe that this 1890’s argument still holds the essence of the matter of privacy. That is because the basis for this definition is the human need to have a sort of personal sphere so we can express ourselves without social pressures and biases.
Since then, the problem of maintaining privacy has become much more complex and harder to control. These days our information is everywhere, every app we use or website we visit holds a massive amount of information about us. The prospects for an invasion of privacy without our knowledge or presence is a concrete reality.
With that problem in mind, combined with the ongoing development of new invasive technologies, the issue of privacy became a main topic of discussion. Beginning last century, many attempts were made to define privacy based on concepts such as control, respect, intimacy, personality and others.
For example, one of the most common approaches towards privacy is Allen Westin’s “privacy as control” approach, which states that privacy is the claim of an individual or a group, to define for themselves when, how, and how much of their information will be transferred to others. In other words, privacy is the control a person has over his or her information, and by preserving this control our right to privacy is unharmed.
Another common approach towards privacy is based on the “privacy as access” definition, which was formalized by Ruth Gavizon. According to Gavizon, the definition of privacy as control is insufficient, and what actually matters most to us is the amount of access that others may have to our information. It’s the level of which we are known to others, the level of physical access they have to us, and the extent to which we’ve become an object of other people’s attention, that preserves or infringes on our sense of privacy. In other words, this approach considers the possibility of breaching a person’s anonymity as the most significant criteria when discussing privacy.
It is now obvious that the concept of privacy, and the importance of safeguarding it, are a central focus both in our practical lives as in our theoretical thought. However, in order to understand why privacy is so important to us, we need to discuss a more basic question. The question we need to pose is the one of the “self.” To be more specific, who is that “self” to whom we attribute private information, the need to guard it, and the ability to trade it? The question of the “self” is of course a huge topic on its own, but for the purpose of this discussion, we can focus on two main approaches that define the “self” and its relation to the world.
The first one is the Solipsistic approach, which claims that a person can be sure of the existence of only one thing — his “self”. This approach is best represented by René Descartes, who believed that the “self” could only be fully understood by turning inwards, towards the “cogito”, and in separation from the world. Moreover, according to Descartes, the physical world and its phenomena are more likely to deceive us in our quest for true understanding and for that reason, the question of the human “self” can be answered only through introspection.
Simply put, according to this view the way to understand and define the self, is through our rational consciousness, and through it alone. Our human essence is our consciousness, our rational thinking, and so the answer to the question of the self is to be found in the realm of thought. The “self” is a being independent from the world surrounding it, and with that understanding of who we are, we live in the world and interact with it.
If we take this approach into account while discussing privacy, it might seem appropriate to look at private information as we look at private property, as something that is ours but is still separate from ourselves. If we perceive the “self” as a complete individualistic being, separate from the world around it, personal information can also be perceived as some sort of “add-on,” something that while belonging to us, is not really a part of us. Under this view, it is easy to treat private information as private property, that is as a commodity that can be sold or bought and that can be disregarded at any time with no real importance to ourselves.
However, if we consider a different approach towards the “self,” we come to a very different conclusion regarding privacy, and the importance of private information.
This second approach is one that was presented by different phenomenologists and existentialist thinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries. This school sees the “self” as being concretely connected to the world, and to the society and time in which an individual lives. The “self” is not just a conscious being that understands itself on its own, and then encounters the world, but is a being that cannot be separated from its specific body, culture and history. We realize ourselves not only in an abstract process of rational thinking, but in a process that involves the world around us. As such, the historical, political and social context we are in, cannot be separated from our definition and understanding of the “self.”
If we take this perception of the “self” into consideration and disregard the notion of a solipsistic self, completely separate and independent from the world around it, we come to a very different take on private information as well. If our “self” is essentially linked to the world around us, to our interests, the actions we do, and to the society we live in, our private information also holds a part of us. We are creatures that are affected by the context in which we live, and in turn, affect our surroundings in a dynamic process of evolution and development. When we give or trade our private information, we are in some sense giving a part of ourselves, as this transfer of information to others will eventually affect us back.
Within this understanding of the “self”, our private data is not something external to us, but a part of us and of the way we understand who we are. It is not an object we can add or remove from ourselves and stay the same, as it is an integral part of our self-definition. In this light, the way we preserve privacy over our data, and how we share it, is critically important.
There are clearly more questions that need to be addressed regarding the subject of privacy, which I will discuss in future articles. The first one is about the ethical considerations involving privacy, and the ethical consequences of breaching it. If we agree that our private information represents a part of us, of our self-definition, the matter of protecting it becomes not only a legal matter, but an ethical one. This leads us to another interesting question; what are some practical ways in which we can truly preserve privacy without withdrawing ourselves from the physical world.
I believe that by understanding what it is we are giving away when we give out our private information, we can make sure we do a better job in protecting it, and our general right to privacy.
