IT and Privacy

Question 1

Privacy Morality meaning?

Answer 1

• your moral commitments in your personal life
  Example. utilitarian greater good, Kantian autonomy, integrity to personal values

Question 2

Public morality meaning?

Answer 2

• your moral commitments in your professional life
  E.g. loyalty, duty to employer, non-disclosure/confidentiality
  Professional obligations to protect privacy

Question 3

Negative consequences of IT and privacy?

Answer 3

Data breaches
Criminal activity
Surveillance capitalism
Collection and commodification of personal data by corporations
Threats and innovations in IT

Question 4

A right to share vs a right to not share information?

Answer 4

a right to privacy) vs
A right to know, a right to access personal information)
Celebrities vs fans
Governments vs citizens
Corporations vs customers/clients
Employers vs employees

Question 5

Constitutional (decisional) vs Tort (or informational) privacy

Answer 5

decisional:
Freedom to make personal decisions without interference by others in personal or intimate matters
Legal/political right to do as you please in private

Informational: Exercising control over access to information about themselves
The right to know (and correct) the information held about you

Question 6

Difference between Reductionist, Non- reductionist, and cluster accounts

Answer 6

Reductionist:
Privacy claims are really about other values (privacy reduces to…)
Property rights, security, intimacy, democracy, liberty, etc.

Non-reductionist:
Privacy claims are not-reducible. Privacy is valuable in itself, and itself a human right.

Cluster accounts:
A cluster of related moral claims underlying appeals to privacy, but no single, essential core

Question 7

Moral reasons for protecting personal data?

Answer 7

1. harm prevention
   Unrestricted access by others
2. informational inequality
   Commodification – users typically not in a good position to negotiate contracts about the use of their data
3. informational injustice and discrimination
   Information collected in one sphere (eg health care) changes its meaning when used in another sphere (eg insurance)
4. encroachment on moral autonomy and human dignity
   Lack of privacy may expose people to outside coercive forces (eg mass surveillance)

Question 8

What are the developments in IT

Answer 8

• Capacity and speed
  Storage capacity on exabyte level
• Connectivity and interaction
  Physical space less important
• Access to info (and personal data) has increased
• Increases in the possibility for agents to act based on new sources of info
  Context for use

Question 9

The impact of IT on privacy?

Answer 9

• Internet
• Social media: show our profile and life for everyone to see.
• Data mining:
  Information explicitly entered by users, but also statistics on user behaviour (eg sites visited, links clicked, search terms entered)
  – Mobile devices:
  Data generating sensors, eg. GPS (location), movement sensors, cameras (data may be transmitted via the internet or other networks)
• Threats of physical harm (stalking, burglary during holidays)
• User awareness of camera activity:
  Engagement lights may be manipulated by malicious software
• The ‘Internet of Things’
  All our devices are connected in the internet of things
  Computing devices, but also:
  RFID chips
  Smart meters
  Smart home devices
  Household appliances
  All transmit data that can be traced back to the user.

Question 10

The impact of privacy part 2

Answer 10

E-government:
Biometric passports
Voting systems
Privacy protects against vote buying, coercion
In some US states it is illegal to take a selfie in a voting booth with your completed ballot
Targeted misinformation
Influence election results
- Surveillance:
CCTV and other camera systems
Facial recognition may lead to profiling, injustice, discrimination
Surveillance capitalism
Data generates prediction models of individual users
Uses by intelligence services and law enforcement in the name of the ‘greater good’

Question 11

How can IT itself solve privacy concerns?

Answer 11

Design methods
“Privacy by design”
Value sensitive approach
“Privacy engineering”
Proactive incorporation of privacy and data protection (rather than add-on or reactive)
- Privacy enhancing technologies
Software tools such as Tor or Freenet browsers
- Identity management
- Cryptography: the practice and study of hiding information.

Question 12

A history of privacy?

Answer 12

1890 – Warren and Brandeis published in the Harvard Law Review protesting the intrusive activities of journalists