Theory Of Privacy In The Information Age

Great Essays
In “Towards a Theory of Privacy in the information Age,” James H. Moor explains greased information, the foundation and nature of privacy, and the adjustment of policies to ensure privacy under certain situations before proposing a control/restricted access theory of privacy. Moor argues that one of the problems of privacy is that once information is exposed, others can have access to it and use it, sometimes without consent. He then claims that privacy is not a core value, or an essential value shared by all cultures, but that privacy is indeed essential in what he calls our system of values. Overall, Moor argues that it is important for us to think of privacy as a control/restricted access account because it encourages informed consent and …show more content…
He then introduces instrumental and intrinsic values and tries to use these two types of values to justify privacy. He discusses how some people believe privacy has both instrumental and intrinsic value, and how some of these people have tried to justify privacy’s intrinsic value by saying that privacy is required in order to have autonomy. Though he agrees that privacy has instrumental value, he proves that privacy does not have intrinsic value and that is not essential for autonomy by providing a scenario where Tom, a stalker, collects information about a specific individual but does not use his knowledge or the information to cause the individual any harm. He explains how in the example Tom is in fact invading the individual’s privacy but that the individual still has complete autonomy. As a result, he introduces the core values, which consist of life, happiness, freedom, knowledge, ability, resources, and security, which he uses to justify the importance of privacy. He explains how privacy is not part of the core values, but that it is necessary to achieve security, which is a core value, and states, “people have a basic right to be protected, which from the point of view of our computerized culture, includes privacy protection.” …show more content…
He discusses how privacy was nowhere in the U.S. Declaration of Independence or in the Constitution because the concept of privacy has been evolving from one thing to the other, starting at the concept of non-intrusion. He introduces natural and normative privacy to explain how we need “zones of privacy” where our information is protected since it would allow us to decide what information we want to make public or keep private. He clarifies that the concept of privacy is not just about the information itself but also about the circumstances where the information was collected or transmitted. He provides an example where private information is accessible to people under certain circumstances, in this case an IRS employee, and how during working hours they have the legal right to look into the files and information of individuals, but that if they were to do that outside of work, then they would be invading someone’s privacy. He then proposes a version of the restricted access view of privacy, where we control information about ourselves and “the right people and only the right people” have access to our information if needed, when needed. He then explains how his idea of control/restricted access accounts work and their advantages. Overall, he claims that it is important for us to think of privacy as a control/restricted access account because

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The 21st century is often referred to as the era of information. This is due to the radical amount of social networking that takes place on a day to day basis. This includes everything from Facebooking your close friends to googling answers for that last minute history assignment. Information is constantly being streamed onto the internet and it only takes a matter of seconds to go viral. The question is then raised, are privacy rights being violated and if so who is to blame?…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Why Privacy Matters

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Assignment Submitted By Yours Name here Submitted To Yours Instructor Name here To Meet the Needs of the Course Nov., 2015. For this rhetorical analysis task, I have selected the article which is titles as Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have Nothing to Hide, written by Daniel J. Solove.…

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With the advancement of technology, the American people 's privacy has shrunk, we are monitored at all times. Cameras at every street corner, cell phones being tracked to the exact foot, every website and Google search seen stored and collected. All of this is done in the name of our safety, but how much of this data is about our safety and more about controlling us? In Adam Penenberg’s essay The Surveillance Society, readers are informed of these measures and are lead to believe the invasion of our privacy is necessary. Some form of surveillance is a necessity in the world we live in today, crimes and terror attacks have been prevented because of it.…

    • 1425 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Patriot Act Research Paper

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Natural rights, privacy, and security are all superior within the Patriot Act. America, now-a-days, are terrorized by foreigners and out-of-state citizens for the control and power over the United States. By reading the primary source documents and commentary texts, it helped to show how the Patriot Act has a relationship to the Bill of Rights because of the reasoning to find a proper balance between national security and individual rights, explaining how the Patriot Act and privacy goes hand in hand with each other, and trying to find a solution to the debate over the Patriot Act. The Reason to finding a proper balance between national security and individual rights is so that the government doesn’t infringe on American rights. On September…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why Privacy Matter Even If You Have “Nothing to Hide” In the article “Why Privacy Matter Even If You Have ‘Nothing to Hide,”’ Daniel J. Solove, talking about the government governed the information to analyze without the permission. Many people didn’t realize how many problems by let the government take their information to analyze. Solove does a great job to persuade the readers that we deserve more the privacy by using the appeal to authority and anecdote.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    According to the United Nations, privacy is basic human right that should be protected by law. The United States Constitution also implies a right to privacy in the Fourth Amendment. Recent laws passed by the government have raised questions about whether the government’s actions infringe upon a citizen’s right to privacy. The USA Patriot Act was the first of many laws that increased the powers of government organizations such as the NSA and the FBI. The law allowed these agencies to access private records of US citizens without the need of a warrant or judge’s consent.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    9/11 National Security

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages

    After the event of 9/11 it catalyzed a nation wide awareness of national security. In the face of this devastation, a conversation began regarding the national security at the expense of privacy. As the years progressed this world of data mining and collection began to grow and extend beyond itself. With the fear of terrorism engrained into political topic, the encroachment of privacy became a concern for an average American. This world of interconnected compilation of information became a vast resource, one where the government didn’t have full control, and one where others had access.…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Privacy is not an option, and it shouldn't be the price we accept for just getting on the Internet,” stated Gary Kovacs the president of several software companies (Kovacs). However, since the implementation of the Patriot Act in 2001, the loss of American privacy is one of the many results of the new set of revised laws that have been rewritten to give the government more freedom in observing our electronic fingerprint (“Surveillance Under the Patriot Act”). In their hurry to act on the tragedy of 9/11, Congress passed the Act a mere 45 days of the event, with little to no debate. The result of it’s ratification, was a drastic change in the surveillance laws and restrictions of the federal government (“End Mass Surveillance Under the Patriot…

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    With the advancement of technology comes a startling decrease in privacy. Nothing is considered ‘personal’ by the internet, or private, or kept a secret. Anything put on the internet is forever immortalized. Technology like cellphones, laptops, and drones have invaded the sense of personal privacy and eliminated the prospects of privacy returning to those who possess technology.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fourth Amendment Privacy

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Even though the United States Constitution does not outright give American citizens the express right to privacy, many amendments contain the protection of certain privacies, more specifically the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The Fourteenth Amendment has a very broad claim, stating that “No State shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The word “liberty” in this statement singlehandedly guarantees this wide sense of privacy to American citizens, as shown through countless amounts of court cases decided based upon this clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the past few decades, privacy rights are often debated closely relating to technology as new methods of hacking,…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Fourth Amendment is always a subject of controversy in national defense and law enforcement, and the constitutional protections of liberty, property, and privacy attribute to solidifying America’s greatness. If I had to choose among the three, I value privacy among all three rights. Recently, the privacy of Americans has been subjected to intrusions demonstrated through crisis legislation like the Patriot Act. Many people believe politicians and lawmakers’ coerced the American people through the belief that sacrificing their privacy would prevent future terrorist acts (Welch, 2015).…

    • 231 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Through this assessment it will be apparent that the arguments Thomson utilizes are not convincing. To accomplish this, the paper will delve into various aspects that show how her paper dilutes and simplifies complex concepts in order to justify her perspective of privacy rights. The critical analysis will also depict how there are various factors involved in her work which make the overall paper incoherent and hard to understand. To finish, this section will conclude by inspecting the ways in which Judith Thomson is biased and this is due to the ways in which she intentionally uses specific examples that will justify her notion of privacy and pays no consideration to the other aspects that may play a…

    • 1075 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The communication privacy theory focuses on privacy boundaries and what information one chooses to withhold from another person. This privacy management system is focused on three parts: privacy ownership, privacy control, and privacy turbulence. Privacy ownership is our private information that only we know and others do not. This also encompasses our personal privacy boundaries. Depending on the person, our privacy boundaries could either be thin and porous, or thick and hard to break through (Griffin p. 151).…

    • 1200 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In our daily lives, we relinquish some of our private information ignorantly. As human beings, many of us tend to simply hand out our information in exchange for other items or free services. Many times, online shopping offers better prices but at what cost? Sometimes, better prices means relinquishing your private information that could be obtained by anyone at anytime. In the article, The Convenience-Surveillance Tradeoff, the author makes compelling points on how our society is unaware of the repercussions that come with relinquishing our…

    • 1456 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    National security vs personal privacy has been a hot topic post-9/11. President Obama gave a speech on January 17, 2014 where he stated “in our rush to respond …. , the risk of government overreach – the possibility that we lose some of our core liberties in pursuit of security – also became more pronounced.” (Office of the Press Secretary) Due to the tragic event on September 11th, 2001, our government was placed under extraordinary pressures to find the terrorists and bring them to justice using whatever means possible. This brings around questions regarding ethical dilemmas as they relate to security and our right to privacy.…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays