Abstract
The “living together” concept poses a puzzle. Why did Europeans decide that life in a modern democracy requires showing one’s face? One explanation is opposition to Muslims and Islam. But the enforcement of face veil bans against non-religious mask wearing raises doubts. This essay poses an alternative explanation. What if the face veil bans persist because of European conceptions of privacy? Von Hannover v. Germany held that one be private in public. Given this, why wear a mask? What is there to hide? To explore this idea, the essay turns to the United States, where one cannot be “private in public” and mask wearing has been opposed on narrow grounds such as public security and the content of specific masks. At the same time, the United States respects the decisional privacy of someone to wear a mask even for “irrational” reasons, something the “living together” idea tends to ignore.
Highlights
Why wear a mask? What is there to hide? To explore this idea, the essay turns to the United States, where one cannot be “private in public” and mask wearing has been opposed on narrow grounds such as public security and the content of specific masks
Is there something in Europe’s conception of privacy – especially the right to be private in public – that explains at least some of the success of the “living together” doctrine? In other words, even if the burqa was necessary for the rise of the “living together” concept, do European concepts of privacy explain its persistence? And how does the debate over face veil bans in Europe compare to the United States, where mask bans date to the nineteenth century, and yet privacy doctrine makes showing one’s face in public a fairly risky act?
Let me identify three ways masks and face veils might enhance a wearer’s privacy: 1 . masks promote privacy by giving the wearer control over what others know about them; 2 . this control over the release of information indirectly promotes the wearer’s decisional privacy; and 3 . the choice to mask itself is a form of decisional privacy – even if the mask is worn for reasons other than concealing part of oneself
Summary
Mask bans have a long history in the United States (Kahn, 2 019a, pp. 8 8–104, describing the history behind the New York and anti-Klan mask bans). One might – as occurred during the pandemic – wear a mask for health reasons; alternatively, one might wear a mask for religious reasons, as some Muslim women do.[22] in a world where Clearview AI maintains a database of 3 billion faces scraped from Facebook, Google and CCTV cameras, a person with no intent to commit a crime might still find masking a reasonable step to protect their privacy (Kashmir, 2020, describing the operations of Clearview AI) This choice to mask might be expressive; but it might be a form of rational action in a society such as the United States where people in “Blue States” monitor readers of the New York Post, while people in “Red States” monitor readers of the New York Times – and shaming/cancellation is always one misstep away. What North Dakota enacted instead, a blanket ban on mask wearing in all public areas in the state, is harder to justify
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Public Governance, Administration and Finances Law Review
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
