Digital Privacy: Leibniz 2.0

Abstract

In 1963, Chief Justice Earl Warren called the ‘fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication’ a danger to the privacy of the individual. If we use the privacy torts as developed in American law — intrusion, disclosure, false light, appropriation — we can see how dangerous those advances have been regarding our privacy. We will see how readily so many can do so much more to invade the privacy of so many more. We will also see a thread running through the privacy torts that was not readily visible before: invasions of privacy treat us as objects to be observed, revealed, manipulated, and used.