The Digitized Self as Public Tender: Conceptualizing Informational Privacy at the Intersection of Information Technology, Commerce, and Public Policy

Abstract

This article identifies the key issues and interests influencing the informational privacy debate, namely, new information technologies, the mass media, the identity industry, and lawmakers. It argues that new information technologies undermine informational privacy by facilitating personal record (mis)management and (ab)use, that sensational coverage by the media of identity theft, data breach, or record misplacement promotes, even if inadvertently, more the interests of commercial data brokers than those of consumers. The article also asserts that although the identity industry, consumer privacy advocates, and federal lawmakers all share a genuine desire to provide greater protections to individuals' personal records, they differ on the nature and scope of such protection because of their contrasting perceptions of informational privacy.