More than 100 years ago, Louis Brandeis, the famous US
Supreme Court judge and “People’s Attorney,” defined
privacy as the “right to be let alone.” It’s
a different world from when Brandeis made this statement,
and the issue of privacy has become much more complicated.
What does being “let alone” mean in our society
now? As members of a technologically dependent society, questions
such as “Do we want to?” and “Can we afford
to?” now come into play.
Law and Service
In this day and age many countries now have privacy laws.
These laws vary in degree of sophistication and focus and are
a result of a public which is more aware, educated and concerned
about the issue of privacy. Generally, these laws try to balance
the needs of the individual with the needs of society and commerce.
Everyone knows that the simplest of our daily activities
results in a trail of electronic data. Modern technology
makes it possible for this data to be collected, corroborated
from different sources and used in ways that are no longer
under the control of the individual who generated the data
in the first place. Today’s way of life, with its focus
on speed and convienence, makes this process necessary. Or
so we are told.
Companies want to serve us better. For this, they collect
our credit card numbers, address, emails, preferences and
habits, record our phone conversations when we call them,
and are always seeking creative ways to target us with their
goods and services. A conflict exists between the commercial
interest to make a profit and the individual need and “right
to be let alone.” To help draw the line between legitimate
business needs and privacy intrusion, Canadian legislation
(PIPEDA, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic
Documents Act, which took effect on January 1, 2004) now
defines how personal information should be collected, stored,
used and disposed of.
The Conflict Within
But the conflict has another dimension: the individual as
a consumer vs. the individual as a private person, and
here no law can draw the line. Privacy relates not only
to how the information that identifies and locates us is
handled, it also includes privacy of our thoughts and actions – intellectual
property. Individual attitudes towards privacy issues vary
enormously.
Forget the telemarketers and the scam artists - while some
people breach their own privacy out of ignorance or lack
of alertness, others continue to surrender their privacy
willingly, a process which is made ever easier by the cheap,
powerful and available technology. People can exhibit their
daily life in front of an Internet camera or rent their body
for display of corporate logos. Consider this extreme? How
about cell phones? How many of us gave even a cursory thought
to privacy implications the first time we put a cell phone
in our pocket? It is obvious that many of us now do not think
much of carrying private conversations in full sight and
hearing of others, and with the advent of cell phone cameras,
some think it “cool” to record and distribute
photos of themselves or others with this technology. Another
phenomenon is the proliferation of blogs and private diaries
on the Internet. Millions of people now use this medium as
a way to expose their most intimate or mundane thoughts for
the rest of the world to witness.
Where are we headed?
The case of the surveillance camera in public places is a contentious issue where
individual attitudes vary tremendously: from those who do not care (because
they “have nothing to hide” or believe in the greater cause of
protecting the public) to those who oppose public cameras on matters of principle
(don’t like Big Brother looking over their shoulder or feel it as an
intrusion on their private lives when public interest comes first). The connection
between privacy and freedom is clear and very consequential.
This conflict will become much more interesting as new technologies
spread. GPS (Global Positioning Systems) and RFID (Radio
Frequency Identification) are the most outstanding examples.
In extreme situations, it is a good thing for us to be located
and saved from danger by a GPS or RFID based device in the
right hands. But the same tools could provide a lot of ground
for unlawful activities and privacy intrusion. Even people
who “have nothing to hide,” do not like the idea
of being continuously monitored. But with time, attitudes
may change. Are we going to step deeper down the path of
surrender to technology’s surveillance society, or
along the path of paranoia? No one knows yet, but the seriousness
of the matter is not lost on governments.
In Canada, a number of studies have recently been commissioned
to look into what happens at the juncture of technology and
privacy. This includes the uses of consumer information through
electronic payments; how our privacy can be protected from
the uses of RFID, mobility networks and surveillance; who
is accessing our medical records and our rights to confidentiality.
One thing is sure: the issue of privacy in today’s
society cannot be let alone. As conscious citizens, we need
to be aware of how information is being collected, and to
what end it is being used. It is a reality of today’s
society.
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