A Brief Note On The Problem Of Privacy

In the essay, “Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’”, published on May 15, 2011, Professor Daniel J. Solove is trying his best to convince his well sophisticated audience that the issue of privacy affects more than just the everyday people veiling a wrong doing. His argument focuses around ethos, and a lot of it. Although there are some logos and pathos, they aren’t as nearly as strong as his ethos. In the type of society that we live in today, privacy has become more and more broad. Everyone sees it on an everyday occurrence just about; including on social networking sites, HIPAA forms, or even with people just simply observing

In “Privacy under Attack,” the authors discuss some potential ways of how our privacy could be in danger or stolen by companies or accessible by administration and corporations. According to the authors, some ways that our privacy could be in danger are first through video records and picture taken by traffic cameras and surveillance cameras for us. Second through illegal “wiretaps” by the government that could hear our conversations. Third, our privacy and personal data could be “monitored by corporations through the role of club cards, raffles, or refunds that outside companies’ collection of data about us can then be sold without noticing, given consumers the optional to search for the box on any frame to indicate they don’t want their personal

Although technology has provided tools to enhance our capabilities in things such as finding a missing person, solving murder cases based on technological assets etc.., this technology also leaves us vulnerable in many ways to slowly losing our privacy (Burten, C., 2012).

As a growing topic of discussion, privacy in our society has stirred quite some concern. With the increase of technology and social networking our standards for privacy have been altered and the boundary between privacy and government has been blurred. In the article, Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets, Peter Singer addresses the different aspects of privacy that are being affected through the use of technology. The role of privacy in a democratic society is a tricky endeavor, however, each individual has a right to privacy. In our society, surveillance undermines privacy and without privacy there can be no democracy.

The topic of this paper is privacy. It will talk about the ethical and legal reasons for maintain privacy. The audience for this paper is high school level teachers in a school with one-to-one devices for every student.

Personal interest in the right to privacy has intensified in recent years along with the rapid development of new technologies. A century later, these concerns remain, but many others have joined them. Advances in information and communications technology have increased our ability to collect, store and transmit data about individuals. While these advances could be considered useful, some see them as a situation where anyone can watch and record the actions of every individual, and where the individual has lost control over information about herself and thus over her very life. As a reaction to these concerns, new regulations have been formulated to define the rights of individuals and the limits on the use of technology with respect to personal information.

In today’s society, the word “privacy” has become ubiquitous. When discussing whether government surveillance and data collection pose a threat to privacy, the most common retort against privacy advocates – by those in favor of databases, video surveillance, spyware, data mining and other modern surveillance measures – is this line: "If I’m not doing anything wrong, what would I have to hide?" The allowance of the government’s gathering and analysis of our personal information stems from an inadequate definition of what privacy is and the eternal value that privacy possesses. The adherents of the “nothing-to-hide” argument say that because the information will never be disclosed to the public, the “privacy interest is minimal, and the security interest in preventing terrorism is much more important.” 1 In an era where the patterns we leave behind will inevitably become the focus for whatever authority, the issue of privacy affects more than just individuals hiding a wrong. In this essay, I will explore the state of online privacy in wake of the government’s warrantless data collection. Respectively, the nothing-to-hide argument and its key variants in more depth.

In earlier times, communities were small and intimate. Personal information was preserved in the memories of friends, family, and neighbors, and it was spread by gossip and storytelling. Today, information is spreading through massive electronic record systems and databases. Privacy become very important and growing concern in every country around the world. Modern computing technologies and the Internet have generated the capacity to collect, manipulate, and share massive quantities of data. In this paper, I will be discussing the advantages and disadvantages of public access to citizens’ private data and other topics on the value of digital privacy.

In chapter 5, Spinello (2011) found that privacy is becoming a major challenge for all different segments of society. This is occurring in a number of different areas including: consumer spending / buying patterns, inside the home / workplace and the way this technology is applied. Moreover, there is a discussion about the various vulnerabilities of the Internet and how issues such cybercrime / spying have resulted directly from these increases. To address these difficulties, both the US and the EU have adopted various laws governing how data is collected and utilized. (Spinello, 2011)

Another possible solution to the NSA’s unwanted surveillance and violation of privacy, is stopping them through the legislative branch by electing representatives and congressman that want to support the proper rights of Americans and stop illegal spying. To make sure that the candidates of elections have been researched and checked for their support of restraint against the NSA and their support for the rights of Americans being protected. At every election there needs to be multiple candidate options to vote for in terms of this issue. In a post on TechCrunch by Gregory Ferenstein is a list of the voters for and against Congress’s funding of the NSA for illegal spying. The vote ended with 205 for and 217 against votes, failing to pass through

Technology is constantly upgrading everyday and it creates unique challenges for individuals privacy rights while there are regulators looking to preserve both privacy rights and technological innovation. For awhile now society has been struggling on how to balance privacy rights and emerging technologies. For example, early as 1890, Newspapers and Photographs were on the rise and legal scholars called for added privacy protections, including enshrining those rights in criminal law. As people have a right to protect their privacy, it is still a struggle while promoting innovation in this fast increasing technology world we live in today.

“If we destroy human rights and rule of law in response to terrorism, they have won”(Joichi Ito). Ever since technology has been available widely around the world, privacy has been a problem. recently , government officials had admitted to collecting data from online databases. The government should not be continuing this violation of privacy for the following reasons, privacy is a basic human right, it is not insured that the people viewing the data will not be corrupt, and because people will no longer be creative or have ideas of their own.

Privacy has expanded to more complex forms including people’s information displayed throughout technology (Kasper 71).

The current controversy that needs addressing is a dating website has been asked to hand over user information to the public health department because of a STD outbreak on the site, even though their policy is against it. Normally, the health department needs a warrant to get this information but because the department is not able to the company that hosts the chatroom needs to make the decision to give out personal user information. The main proposal being presented is the company should give out the user’s personal information because if it does not the STD could continue to spread without the carriers even knowing. So, the department believes that for the betterment of public health it is okay to breach privacy in this instance.

The widespread use of information technology, automatic data processing techniques, the formation of global information systems, access to which can be virtually made by any person from anywhere in the world – these are the real characteristics of the gaining momentum digital era. On the one hand, the benefits of free access to information directly provide the realization of one of the most important democratic rights to freedom of information to citizens. The management of large-scale automated databases not only significantly optimizes the various processes of preparation and decision-making but also facilitates citizens’ access to the digital market – from the use of credit cards to the formation of a biometric portrait and projection of possible diseases. On the other hand, the widespread use of personal data by public authorities, businesses and social organizations significantly increases the risk of intrusion by unauthorized persons in the private sphere of a person, creating an infringement threat of one of its fundamental natural rights – the right to privacy (Bygrave, 2014).