Abstract
Abstract New technologies often create novel social tensions that induce legal change. Two new information technologies: genetic testing and the Internet exert pressures on our normative conception of identity. Identity related tensions underlie a broad range of social and legal controversies. The article argues that the ubiquity of these tensions creates a need to elevate the legal interest of identity from the shadows of legal discourse to the center of the stage. Identity interests should be incorporated into our legal discourse in order to improve the social accommodation of the two information technologies through the resolution of these identity tensions. Part I of the article examines the conception of identity as a life narrative and its importance as a zone of normative concern. Part II of the article fleshes out the abstract identity argument by providing concrete legal examples involving the physician’s duty to warn in cases of genetic testing and gay anonymity on the Internet. Part III explains the failure to protect identity interests with traditional privacy tools and argues for the need to incorporate identity interests into the legal debate.
Published Version
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