Conceptualization Of Privacy Research Articles

Unity in Privacy Diversity: A Kaleidoscopic View of Privacy Definitions

Contrary to the common claim that privacy is a concept in disarray, this Article argues that there is considerable coherence in the way privacy has been conceptualized over many decades of privacy scholarship. Seemingly disparate approaches and widely differing definitions actually share close family resemblances that, viewed together from a bird’s-eye perspective, suggest that the concept of privacy is more akin to a kaleidoscope than to a swamp. As a heuristic device to look at this kaleidoscope, we use a working definition of privacy as having spaces in which you can be yourselves, building on two major strands in privacy theory: identity-building and boundary-management. With this heuristic, we analyze how six authoritative privacy accounts can be understood in the terms and rationale of other definitions. We show how the notions of Cohen (room for boundary management), Johnson (freedom from others’ judgement), Nissenbaum (contextual integrity), Reiman (personhood), Warren and Brandeis (being let alone), and Westin (control over information) have significant overlap with—or may even be equivalent to—an understanding of privacy in terms of identity-fostering spaces. Our kaleidoscopic perspective highlights not only that there is coherence in privacy, but also helps to understand the function and value of having many different privacy definitions around: each time and context bring their own privacy-related challenges, which might best be addressed through a certain conceptualization of privacy that works in that particular context. As the world turns its kaleidoscope of emerging privacy issues, privacy scholarship turns its kaleidoscope of privacy definitions along. The result of this kaleidoscopic perspective on privacy is an illuminating picture of unity in diversity.

Contact tracing apps: an ethical roadmap

This research statement presents a roadmap for the ethical evaluation of contact tracing apps. Assuming the possible development of an effective and secure contact tracing app, this roadmap explores three ethical concerns—privacy, data monopolists and coercion- based on three scenarios. The first scenario envisions and critically evaluates an app that is built on the conceptualization of privacy as anonymity and a mere individual right rather than a social value. The second scenario sketches and critically discusses an app that adequately addresses privacy concerns but is facilitated by data monopolists such as Google and Apple. The final scenario discusses the coerced installation and use of a privacy-friendly, independently developed contact tracing app. The main worry is coercion through societal exclusion and limited societal participation. The statement concludes with three suggestions for designing an ethical contact tracing app and a research agenda.

Human Rights in the Age of Platforms

Scholars from across law and internet and media studies examine the human rights implications of today's platform society.Today such companies as Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter play an increasingly important role in how users form and express opinions, encounter information, debate, disagree, mobilize, and maintain their privacy. What are the human rights implications of an online domain managed by privately owned platforms? According to the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, adopted by the UN Human Right Council in 2011, businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights and to carry out human rights due diligence. But this goal is dependent on the willingness of states to encode such norms into business regulations and of companies to comply. In this volume, contributors from across law and internet and media studies examine the state of human rights in today's platform society.The contributors consider the ?datafication? of society, including the economic model of data extraction and the conceptualization of privacy. They examine online advertising, content moderation, corporate storytelling around human rights, and other platform practices. Finally, they discuss the relationship between human rights law and private actors, addressing such issues as private companies' human rights responsibilities and content regulation.ContributorsAnja Bechmann, Fernando Bermejo, Agnes Callamard, Mikkel Flyverbom, Rikke Frank Jorgensen, Molly K. Land, Tarlach McGonagle, Jens-Erik Mai, Joris van Hoboken, Glen Whelan, Jillian C. York, Shoshana Zuboff, Ethan ZuckermanOpen access edition published with generous support from Knowledge Unlatched and the Danish Council for Independent Research.

MAKING SENSE OF SOCIAL MEDIA PRIVACY: A FRAMING EXPERIMENT

As individuals trade information to access social media products and services, privacy has become increasingly valuable. Elite discourses have tended to frame privacy in terms of its vertical or institutional dimensions, but much less attention has been given to how users individually interpret and make sense of this complex notion. How do privacy sense-making processes intersect with privacy concerns and self-efficacy? What happens to these outcomes when an individual’s ideas about privacy collide with framing by an authoritative source? This project poses a 2x2 survey-based experiment with 628 subjects to explore these questions. We examine differences in privacy concerns and self-efficacy resulting from an individual’s own conceptualization of privacy, as well as from the presentation of similar and alternative framing of the concept. Preliminary results indicate that while individual conceptualizations show no differences in outcomes, higher levels of privacy self-efficacy result from the framing of privacy in horizontal terms and lower levels of privacy concern result when framing is consistent with the individual’s conceptualization. Strategic and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Toward a transnational model of social media privacy: How young Saudi transnationals do privacy on Facebook

Previous models of cross-cultural differences fail to adequately account for transnational patterns of social media use, especially as it relates to notions of privacy. Based on our study of young transnational Saudis, we propose a new model, the rubber band model of transnational privacy, to account for the way social media users stretch their conceptualization of privacy as practiced in their societies of origin to include new norms and practices in their hosting society. We explore how this process unfolds through a series of ethnographic interviews conducted with young Saudis at different stages of their migratory journey from Saudi Arabia to the United States and back. Our findings hold important implications for viewing privacy as a dynamic concept related to the fluid production of identities in online spaces. The model of privacy we put forth seeks to inform the culturally sensitive development of information and communications technology (ICTs).

The Heat is On: Thermal Sensing and Newsgathering – A Look at the Legal Implications of Modern Newsgathering

Thermal imaging technology, which was once used primarily by the military, has made its way into the civilian world. Journalists have begun making use of the technology, and, as that use becomes more prevalent, concerns about legal issues also arise. This article, relying on tort privacy cases, Fourth Amendment case law, and theoretical conceptualizations of privacy, provides an in-depth examination of the legal implications surrounding the use of thermal imaging devices for newsgathering.

Stephenson’s Subjectivity as Naturalistic and Understood from a Scientific Perspective

This article is based on the radical idea that subjectivity is open to scientific understanding in the same fundamental manner in which we understand any other aspect of the natural world. Our argument is based on the contributions of William Stephenson, B. F. Skinner, and J. R. Kantor, among others. We begin with the Q methodologist Stephenson, who advocated a monistic approach to behavior and exhibited a commitment to a naturalistic behaviorism. He conceptualized subjectivity as focused on self-reference, an internal standpoint, and consciring (i.e., communicating). In an effort to clarify and extend Stephenson, we then turn to the behavior–analytic, interbehavioral, and Q methodological literatures and to the concepts of the mind as behavior, behavioral probes, derived constructs, and consciousness. Collectively, these concepts contribute to a naturalistic understanding of subjectivity and the rejection of mind as a hidden entity. In closing, we briefly consider the implications of Q methodology for behavior analysis, particularly for the latter’s conceptualization of privacy in terms of private events.

Privacy As Trust: Sharing Personal Information in a Networked World

This Article is the first in a series on the legal and sociological aspects of privacy, arguing that private contexts are defined by relationships of trust among individuals. The argument reorients privacy scholarship from an individual right to social relationships of disclosure. This has implications for a wide variety of vexing problems of modern privacy law, from limited disclosures to “revenge porn.” The common everyday understanding is that privacy is about choice, autonomy, and individual freedom. It encompasses the individual’s right to determine what he will keep hidden and what, how, and when he will disclose to the public. Privacy is his respite from the prying, conformist eyes of the rest of the world and his expectation that the things about himself that he wants to keep private will remain so. These ways of understanding privacy are variations on the same theme: that privacy is a tool of the individual “against the world.” None of them adequately protect personal privacy where sharing personal information with others is a precondition of modern life. This Article argues that privacy is really about trust. Rather than accept the traditional division between public and private, and rather than begin and end the discussion of privacy as an individual right, this Article bridges social science and the law to argue that disclosures in contexts of trust are private. Trusting relationships are determined by the presence of experience, strong overlapping networks, identity sharing, and other indicia derived from the totality of the circumstances. This conceptualization of privacy, and its related ways of defining when invasions of privacy occur, more effectively protects privacy in a modern digital world.

Breathing Room in Monitored Space: The Impact of Passive Monitoring Technology on Privacy in Independent Living.

This study examines articulations of the relationship between privacy and passive monitoring by users and former users of a sensor-based remote monitoring system. A new conceptualization of privacy provides a framework for a constructive analysis of the study's findings with practical implications. Forty-nine in-depth semistructured interviews were conducted with elder residents, family members, and staff of 6 low-income independent living residence apartment buildings where the passive monitoring system had been offered for 6 years. Transcribed interviews were coded into the Dedoose software service and were analyzed using methods of grounded theory. Five diverse articulations of the relationship between privacy and passive monitoring emerged. The system produced new knowledge about residents and enabled staff to decide how much of that knowledge to disclose to residents. They chose not to disclose to residents their reason for following up on system-generated alerts for 2 reasons: concern that feelings of privacy invasion may arise and cause dissatisfaction with the technology, and the knowledge that many resident users did not comprehend the extent of its features and would be alarmed. This research reveals the importance and challenges of obtaining informed consent. It identifies where boundary intrusion can occur in the use of passive monitoring as well as how changes to technology design and practice could create opportunities for residents to manage their own boundaries according to their privacy needs. The diversity of approaches to privacy supports the need for "opportunity for boundary management" to be employed as both a design and practice principle.

Samotność w prywatnym świecie

The text is concentrated on relations between concepts of privacy and solitude nowadays. The author claimed that privacy replaced traditional metaphors and images of solitude like island, mountain or dessert. Protection of privacy and bringing it to the limelight, privatization of religion and the special place occupied in contemporary culture by a search for one’s own identity reveal not only a change in society’s ideas about privacy, but also its axiotic dimension connected with authenticity, creativity and freedom. The meaningful result of this process is connected with replacing religious Transcendence by private individual internal experience, which became unrecognizedand mysterious for the subject itself. It proved to new conceptualization of privacy and ofsolitude as well.

A Social Theory of Privacy

This Article is the first in a series on the legal and sociological aspects of privacy, arguing that private contexts are defined by relationships of trust among individuals. The argument reorients privacy scholarship from an individual right to social relationships of disclosure. This has implications for a wide variety of vexing problems of modern privacy law, from limited disclosures to “revenge porn.” The common everyday understanding is that privacy is about choice, autonomy, and individual freedom. It encompasses the individual’s right to determine what he will keep hidden and what, how, and when he will disclose to the public. Privacy is his respite from the prying, conformist eyes of the rest of the world and his expectation that the things about himself that he wants to keep private will remain so. These ways of understanding privacy are variations on the same theme: that privacy is a tool of the individual “against the world.” None of them adequately protect personal privacy where sharing personal information with others is a precondition of modern life. This Article argues that privacy is really about trust. Rather than accept the traditional division between public and private, and rather than begin and end the discussion of privacy as an individual right, this Article bridges social science and the law to argue that disclosures in contexts of trust are private. Trusting relationships are determined by the presence of experience, strong overlapping networks, identity sharing, and other indicia derived from the totality of the circumstances. This conceptualization of privacy, and its related ways of defining when invasions of privacy occur, more effectively protects privacy in a modern digital world.

Privacy, health insurance, and medical research: tensions raised by European data protection law

Medical research, particularly using biobanking and genetic information, relies upon a full disclosure of medical information from as wide a group as possible. This reveals individuals' vulnerabilities that could lead to disease, but also to early diagnosis and treatment where it is available. In health insurance, this same information is used to inform decisions about the availability (including cost) of cover for the individual. In individual risk-based insurance this creates a tension with the social purposes of medical research. Within the regulatory framework, one of the most important legal instruments in Europe is the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC). It operates within a context of the right to a private life in the European Convention on Human Rights. This paper asks how this central piece of legislation, within a discussion of the conceptualization of privacy, addresses the tension between medical research and health insurance.

Issues Around the Protection or Revelation of Personal Information

Privacy watchdog groups have criticized the privacy policies and practices of internet service providers and search engine companies like AOL, Google, and Microsoft. AOL’s decision to upload users’ search query records to the internet drew intense criticism when it was shown that minor sleuthing could decipher some users’ private identities. We draw upon this and similar incidents to demonstrate various personal borders that are crossed by such revelations. We maintain that policy discussions are enhanced by multidimensional conceptualizations of privacy. We agree that many analyses of technology and privacy overlook the upsides of technological change; however, we think it is not more valid to understate privacy implications.

Doing Research in Cyberspace

Although laws and policies developed in the context of off-line research apply to online investigations, questions about the identifiability of human subjects, the conceptualization of privacy, the need for and means of obtaining informed consent, and the applicability of copyright law to computer-mediated communication (CMC) pose special problems for doing research in cyberspace.

A space of one’s own: autonomy, privacy, liberty

The value of a negatively defined private space is defended as important for the development of personal autonomy. It is argued that negative liberty is problematic when split off from its connection with this ideal. An ethical interpretation of personal autonomy is proposed according to which a private space is one of autonomy’s preconditions. This leads to a conceptualization of privacy that is fruitful in two respects: it permits an account of privacy laws that avoids certain pitfalls, and it serves as a basis for criticizing privacy-related failures of autonomy together with the social forces that produce them. Negative liberty is, furthermore, rejected as an adequate basis for modern law and democracy. Here, too, an ethically defined personal autonomy, of which negative liberty is a precondition, is held to be the most convincing normative foundation. A critical reading of Habermas’ cooriginality thesis is offered in support of this argument.