Privacy In Peter Singer's Visible Man

The internet has become a popular source used by society of a worldwide computer network that provides a variety of information and communication facilities allowing individuals to communicate with one another easily. The internet it self has brought people together but has changed the way people interact with each other, created isolation, some addiction and being unsafe. Nowadays, anything can be shared to the wide world through any device that is able to connect to the internet; where this can lead to what Charles Seife terms as “no privacy” in his article, “The Loneliness of the Interconnected.” According to Seife, the Internet’s vast interconnectivity made it possible for everyone to hear everyone else - and to be heard by everyone else.

In Peter Singer’s “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets,” one main word drives the article: privacy. Singer addresses privacy thoroughly in the passage and provides an objective view on the topic. One particularly prevalent issue is how much information disrupts one’s privacy and how much can truly be shared. Some people argue that ignorance is bliss and that the world is a better place being unaware of all the tragedy happening around them. However, being knowledgeable is important and a person should know what transpiring around them. To better society and keep people informed, one should be ethical and share pertinent information using tools such as WikiLeaks and “sousveillance.”

In the twenty first century, everyone is gluing their eyes to bright screens, and keeping their minds and mouths shut. The public mindlessly releasing information through dangerous domains, like the Internet, poses a great issue. Citizens do not realize where their information can be used and why it is used. This unfortunate circumstance is seen in Peter Singer’s “Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets.” Although there is a sensation of isolation for the public in this century, there should still be a great amount of openness when it comes to social and political events that involve information, and the ways that data is collected for these purposes.

As we invest our lives into the allurements of the Internet, our privacy has stowed itself into the relative anonymity of vast city populations. But these precious moments of privacy, hidden in the over abundance of lives and routines, will soon be threatened by facial recognition technology (Frey 2016). Any negative connotations surrounding surveillance is reciprocated by the Orwellian dystopia which is popular for its pessimistic perspective. Although these visions of a restrictive surveillance state are just fictional ambiguous representations, their concerns should not be easily dismissed (Richards 2013). Subconsciously, derived from Orwell’s ideas, we recognize privacy’s role in the effort to avoid dehumanizing a country, however, according to Neil Richards (2013, 1934), “we lack an understanding of what ‘privacy’ means in this context and why it matters”. It is most critical that we address these questions now as facial recognition technology becomes increasingly prominent in our everyday lives.

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

Daniel Solove, a professor who specializes in internet privacy law, wrote this book to give his personal take on how the internet was transforming the way people connect through social mediums and how that could change in the future. An important thing to note about this book is that it was published in 2007, so some of the social and technological aspects of the book are slightly dated. Regardless of this though, this book provides an inquisitive perspective on the dynamic nature of the internet as a vessel of our society’s changing norms on privacy in the social sphere. Many of our learning points in class relate to topics discussed in this book and help to strengthen the context and significance of the underlying message.

The general public gives an problem with the government surveillance as a media for invading others privacy. With the government monitoring, collecting, and retaining people's personal data, one side would claim that it is an infringement of their freedom to the rights to privacy. While the National security associations justifies the reason for monitoring would be to maintain order. Their ways to maintain order would be to monitor criminal and terrorist activity and to detect incoming threats, terrorists, or problems that would harm their country. This issue shows that freedom cannot exist without order. Although the general public wants their freedom of their privacy, they can not achieve their most of their desires because it puts their lives at risk without protection. Order is necessary in order to have freedom. It is impossible to attain entire freedom for a cause, however, it is possible to attain freedom to a certain

Today, individuals are sacrificing privacy in order to feel safe. These sacrifices have made a significant impact on the current meaning of privacy, but may have greater consequences in the future. According to Debbie Kasper in her journal, “The Evolution (Or Devolution) of Privacy,” privacy is a struggling dilemma in America. Kasper asks, “If it is gone, when did it disappear, and why?”(Kasper 69). Our past generation has experienced the baby boom, and the world today is witnessing a technological boom. Technology is growing at an exponential rate, thus making information easier to access and share than ever before. The rapid diminishing of privacy is leaving Americans desperate for change.

In Peter Singer’s “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets,” one main word drives the article: privacy. Singer addresses privacy thoroughly in the passage and provides an objective view of the topic. One question that appears prevalent is how much information disrupts one’s privacy and how much can truly be shared. Some people argue that ignorance is bliss, and that the world is a better place being unaware of all the tragedy happening around it. However, being knowledgeable is important and a person should know what is occurring around them. To better society and keep people informed, one should be ethical and share pertinent information using tools such as WikiLeaks and “sousveillance.”

Dvorak’s argument is of little conjecture. While the text starts by commenting on Facebook’s “cavalier lack of concern over privacy issues, it continues down a completely different path, criticizing the users instead. This falsely-led introduction brings the readers to believe that the article is about privacy concerns instead of the ignorant mannerisms of the people using it.

With new technology rolling out onto the market seemingly everyday, the privacy of many is disappearing and has even become nonexistent. With many scandals over the past few years, government agencies have been accused of using these new communication resources as means to keep a watchful eye over their citizens. This is the very topic discussed by Peter Singer in his essay “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets”. Singer discusses the benefits and pitfalls that have come from these communication innovations, going in depth on the tactics and resources used by civilians as well as governments to keep track of each other. Singer presents strong premises that argue for the conservation of the individual privacy rights while also arguing for governments to become more transparent, creating an overall controversial element to his essay, as he is only half invested in transparency as a whole between civilians and the body that governs them, that comes off as somewhat unconvincing as the two arguments contradict each other.

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.

Online technologies are beneficial to the modern world. It can improve a person’s education, business, and helps in everyday life hassles. It has become an essential part of the way that people live and it is very likely that people would be a loss without it. In “Ethics and the New Genetics,” the Dalai Lama claims that to ethically use new technological advancements we need to develop a “moral compass”. Peter Singer, in “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets,” discusses whether new technology and “openness” makes our lives better, or if the lack of privacy takes away the rights of individuals. Both authors discuss how technology is advancing very rapidly and can significantly have major pros and cons to society. The two authors, however, have different viewpoints in which how the society can determine when technology has become ethical. Dalai Lama is firm believer that technology is evolving so fast that ethics could hardly keep up with it. He addresses how people should have ethical standards when dealing with the internet. Thus, he is directly proving to us how he would want society to ethically determine when and how technology should be used. Yet, on another spectrum, Peter Singer argues that although ethically, internet is invading our privacy, this invasion of privacy is the only way that the public is safe and people should brutally discover the truth about everything but somehow it can cause harm. Peter Singer and Dalai Lama both agree how the new online

Mordini, E; Manfred,G.  (2009).  ‘Identity, Security and Democracy: The Wider Social and Ethical Implications of Automated Systems for Human Identification.’

There is a concern about many users privacy worldwide. Technology is constantly upgrading and internet is being used daily worldwide. Laws are constantly changing and there are many concerns about this. In this essay, I will be talking about why