How to protect privacy in a datafied society? A presentation of multiple legal and conceptual approaches

Oskar J. Gstrein,Anne Beaulieu

doi:10.1007/s13347-022-00497-4

Oskar J. Gstrein, Anne Beaulieu

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00497-4

Copy DOI

Abstract

The United Nations confirmed that privacy remains a human right in the digital age, but our daily digital experiences and seemingly ever-increasing amounts of data suggest that privacy is a mundane, distributed and technologically mediated concept. This article explores privacy by mapping out different legal and conceptual approaches to privacy protection in the context of datafication. It provides an essential starting point to explore the entwinement of technological, ethical and regulatory dynamics. It clarifies why each of the presented approaches emphasises particular aspects and analyses the tensions that arise. The resulting overview provides insight into the main strengths and limitations of the different approaches arising from specific traditions. This analytic overview therefore serves as a key resource to analyse the usefulness of the approaches in the context of the increasing datafication of both private and public spheres.Specifically, we contrast the approach focusing on data subjects whose data are being ‘protected’ with others, including Fair Information Practice Principles, the German right to ‘informational self-determination’, and the South American ‘habeas data’ doctrine. We also present and contrast emerging approaches to privacy (differential privacy, contextual integrity, group privacy) and discuss their intersection with datafication. In conclusion, we put forth that rather than aiming for one single solution that works worldwide and across all situations, it is essential to identify synergies and stumbling blocks between the various regulatory settings and newly emerging approaches.

Highlights

The arguments in this article are based on a conference paper, Oskar Gstrein and Anne Beaulieu (2019)
We focused on exploring the intersection of datafication and the protection of privacy
The dynamics we have described are deserving of much more attention and suggest a series of important lines of inquiry: How do encounters between these various versions of privacy and personhood fare? Is there an ‘interoperability’ of privacy at work as data increasingly circulate globally? Is it the case that several different approaches thrive or are we moving towards a monoculture of privacy focused on the least common denominator? is it necessary that only one of the presented approaches emerges as the single solution to the complex challenges? It seems that some of them will work well in different societal circumstances and disciplinary contexts

Summary

Introduction

The arguments in this article are based on a conference paper, Oskar Gstrein and Anne Beaulieu (2019). It will appeal to users, designers, regulators and analysts who benefit from a concise overview of these different approaches and are interested in how they function in a datafied society These developments constitute new ways of being and make data deeply personal—changes that can seem unavoidable. When users of most mainstream instant messaging apps (e.g. WhatsApp owned by Meta Platforms/Facebook) agree to the terms of service, this provides the company running mainstream apps with the entire content of the user’s address book, which includes telephone numbers of non-users From these data, the existence and identity, and the kind of personal characteristics such non-users might have, can be extrapolated (Garcia, 2017). The pervasive deployment of datafication enables inferences on those who opt-out, regardless of how techniques such as anonymisation are being applied (Finck & Pallas, 2020, p. 35)

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion