How Individuals Maintain Privacy Boundaries

When there maybe a conflict or dilemma in relation to sharing information and maintaining confidentiality.

Today, we can find tabloids and magazines on shelves of supermarkets or kiosks with pictures of celebrities or occasionally normal people who do not realize that they were photographed while they were in their home or enjoying their vacations. The motivation for those photographers who take those photos are probably the same which motivated Darwin Bonaparte to film John in the novel “Brave New World”. They aspire to be famous and wealthy. They are truly selfish, irresponsible and materialistic. Indeed, they gravely violate the right of those people to have privacy. For example, an article published in the USA Today mentions and presents different opinions about it,

Secret is defined as something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others. If that is true, why do we tell others our secrets? No one's secrets are truly theirs, at some point anxiety will build up, information accidentally comes out, or you may just tell someone. Your confidentialities are not always yours, at a young age kids tell their parents everything. As those kids grow up, and become teens they start to develop barriers between their parents. Not telling them whatever is going on, at school or at practice can only last so long. This is hardly the case, because everyone has told their friend or parent something that was meant to be classified. For example, if one player on the basketball team knows a secret about another player, the whole team knows. That is due to the fact that we are a family and don’t care what we think of each other, because we are one. Trustworthiness is hard to prove, confidence is needed to tell someone a secret. If the friend is not trustworthy then that secret could be floating around school completely changed from its original stature. A secret is only a true secret if it is kept with only yourself. Just as honesty is evident in life so it is in literature. In William Shakespeare’s famous love story, “ Romeo and Juliet” and in life, withholding secrets is the

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.

America today rivals George Orwell’s 1984 society through the National Security Agency’s global surveillance programs such as Prism, XKeyscore, and Dishfire. Surveillance programs, led by the NSA, are all used to clandestinely collect electronic data from all internet and phone users throughout the world. These programs came about after the Patriot Act of 2001. This act was put in place to help protect the American people from terrorist groups after the atrocities seen on 9/11. Originally drafted to protect the people, the Patriot Act was soon taken advantage of by the NSA. These programs should be heavily restricted because they disregard personal privacy, do not properly protect the information they are taking, and, lastly, are unconstitutional.

The government's involvement in the daily lives of Americans is a high contested issue--where do our rights end and invasions of our privacy begin? Though it may be true that the government should not control deeply personal decisions, such as the decision to marry or the freedom of a woman to control what is done to her body, there are times when decisive executive choices must be made without leaving the responsibility to the common people. This fact does not work against America’s goals of democracy and self-sufficiency, but rather proves that our government can support these goals by taking action to solve serious nationwide problems.

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.

When it comes to personal privacy, people are always aware, trying to keep their information secure from those who have bad intentions. But now the government is attempting to have a have a say in your privacy. With the recent attack on San Bernardino, the government is trying to have Apple break into the attacker’s phone with hopes to find evidence. But with that happening the government would have access to everybody’s iPhone. The Government having power to look into your phone and see what you’re doing or where you are makes you feel like you have no privacy. Although the government is breaking into your privacy, it is so that you may feel safer. Which raises the question if we should have our privacy taken away for security. We shouldn't

Communication Privacy Management Theory is designed to help explain the decision where people balance the advantages and disadvantages of revealing or concealing information to certain people in certain contexts. One major factor in this balancing act, the theory argues, is that of boundary linkage. In short, by disclosing information to another party, the sharer is transferring co-ownership of that information to that party, and without the establishment of rules regarding that information, that new party is able to then transfer the information ownership to additional parties. This creates a tension in that the initial owner still holds the belief that they are the true owner of information, and yet they’ve lost a certain measure of control; this tension, or boundary turbulence, can in turn lead to concern or distress. By looking into these feelings of tension and concern that occur after decision to disclose or conceal information have been made, a better understanding of what effects boundary linkage has on people’s decisions can be obtained.

Individuals have different levels of disclosure and when combined with another individual’s disclosure level can have positive or negative outcomes. The decision to communicate can also cause uncertainty within relationships. Prior research was conducted to try and measure what exactly causes the uncertainty and negative results to show up in a relationship. Intimacy, security, problematic events, and irritations are all different elements that can be stronger or weaker in the relationship based on the disclosure (Theiss and Solomon 2006).

Throughout time, privacy and security have been two heavily debated topics. There has always been a struggle to find middle ground between a private environment and a secure environment, but the dawn of technology and the Internet has made this struggle even more difficult. The Internet has drastically decreased the expectation of privacy of any and all individuals that have ever used it. Technology in general can pose a threat to an individual’s physical and virtual security. The Internet has also brought forth a sense of anonymity to those looking to conceal their true identities, some of which plan to commit horrific crimes. Privacy and security go hand in hand, however security is by far the most important.

The layers of self-disclosure can be identified as layers of an onion. Self-disclosure can be referred to as layers of an onion because in the relationship you peel back a layer at a time. The outer layer of the onion is only superficial communication that is not as intimate and can be seen by any of the public. This communication can include height, weight, where someone works or goes to school, etc. The inner layer of the onion includes more personal communication that is not always seen by the public. This inner layer can include communication that involves a persons goals, values, and beliefs. In a study done in 2012, bloggers tended to stick to the outer layers of the onion when discussing topics in their blogs (Tang). The social penetration theory and social media’s impact on the theory will be expanded upon more later on in the paper.

Self-disclosure is the voluntary sharing of personal history, preferences, attitudes, feelings, values, secrets, etc. with another person (Griffin, p. 97). As stated in the introduction Altman and Taylor look at relationships as an “onions.” The different layers are representative of different feelings of a person. When

Communication privacy management (CPM) is a theory about how people make decisions about revealing and concealing private information. CPM theory suggests that individuals maintain and coordinate privacy boundaries (the limits of what they are willing to share) with various communication partners depending on the perceived benefits and costs of information disclosure. People believe they own and have a right to control their private information and control their private information through the use of personal privacy rules. When others are told or given access to a person’s private information, they become co-owners of that information.

I will be connecting family rules and health to Communication Privacy Management theory. The Communication Privacy Management theory is about the revealing or concealing of family private information through the use of boundaries and rules. A family has to provide rules or boundaries when communicating secrets to the immediate family, if that information should be shared or kept a secret. In Chapter 3, it discusses that Communication Privacy Management discusses that holding or telling private information could benefit or harm the family (Braithwaite& Baxter, 2006). In regard to CPM, some concepts that are prominent to my topic are Boundary Turbulence, Ownership and Control, and Coordinating Mutual Boundaries. These concepts will create connections between family health to Communication Privacy Management.