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Information ethics. Kenneth Einar Himma
Privacy is a difficult notion to define. Part of the problem is that privacy has been used to denote a wide number of interests including, personal information control, reproductive autonomy, access to places and bodies, secrecy, and personal development. Privacy interests also appear to be culturally relative - for example opening a door without knocking might be considered a serious privacy violation in one culture and yet permitted in another.
In any case, privacy, as noted in the brief historical sketch that follows, has always been a commodity secured, more or less, on the basis of wealth, power, and privilege. While recent advances in information technology have highlighted privacy interests and concerns, privacy norms, and more generally public/private distinctions, have been found in every culture systematically studied. Based on the human relations area files at Yale University, Alan [106] Westin (1968) has argued that there are aspects of privacy found in every society - privacy is a cultural universal. This view is supported by John Roberts and Thomas Gregor:
Societies stemming from quite different cultural traditions such as the Mehinacu and the Zuni do not lack rules and barriers restricting the flow of information within the community, but the management and the functions of privacy may be quite different ([86] Roberts and Gregor, 1971, p. 200).
In the USA legal protections for privacy have been found to exist in the penumbras of certain amendments to the Constitution and as part of common law. Local, State, and Federal statutes also protect various dimensions of privacy. From these sources privacy law has grown to protect the sanctity of the home and bedroom, a women's right to obtain an abortion, the right to secure publications with anonymity, and rights against intrusions by government officials or other citizens.
In this article we will review each of these areas including:
- a brief history of privacy;
- philosophical definitions of privacy along with specific critiques;
- legal conceptions of privacy, including the history of privacy protections granted in constitutional and tort law; and
- general critiques of privacy protections both moral and legal.
Our hope is to provide a general overview of the issues and debates that frame this lively area of scholarly inquiry.
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