If Privacy Is Dead, What Can We Do Instead? [Commentary]
Bogdan Hoanca · IEEE Technology and Society Magazine · 2016
In this article we deconstruct privacy and identify several privacy areas that will see different treatments. If privacy becomes unattainable, the outcome and societal impact will be different in each area. In that spirit, we view private information as falling into one of four categories: 1) private information about illegal activities; 2) private information about legal activities that are not generally acceptable in the society; private information about legal activities that are relatively common, but not flattering; and 4) private information that is used as personally identifying information. Private information can be collected by either private citizens (or private organizations) or by governmental entities. The motives behind capturing information may be as diverse as state or corporate policies, blackmail, voyeuristic inclinations, vigilantism, or random chance (capturing private information unintentionally). Legal protections against capturing and using private information depend on both the nature of the collector and on the motives. Some legal protections of private information exist, for example requiring a warrant to conduct certain searches. On the other hand, if information will leak, the original place that leaked the private information may not be relevant. Once collected and made public, information will be available to all entities, with or without a search warrant. In the next sections, we explore what zero privacy means for each of the four categories of information listed above.