The Concept of Privacy


At first sight, it is clear what privacy is, but it is often hard to say how exactly it is defined and why we value it (Weckert & Adeney, 1997). Even though privacy concerns have been with us for a long time, at least since the ancient Greek civilisation (Arendt, 1958; Rotenberg, 1998), they have gained new importance in modern societies . This can be seen from the probably most frequently cited definition of privacy as the right to be let alone, developed by Warren and Brandeis in 1890 and still in use today (Britz, 1999).

The above definition is too wide to be of much practical use. Other definitions have been suggested. One way to approach privacy is to see it as a matter of control over information. This means that privacy is jeopardised where an individual loses control over who has what information about that individual (Culnan, 1993; Elgesiem, 2001; Tavani & Moor, 2001). Privacy is the ability for an individual to control the use of their own personal data, wherever it might be recorded (Fleming, 2003,p. 128). The legal concept that is meant to protect privacy in this definition is often called the right to informational self-determination (Stalder, 2002).

Another approach to privacy and its protection is the definition of personal data as property (Spinello, 2000; Weckert & Adeney, 1997). The idea is that in order to give individuals control over information concerning them, one can classify this information as their personal property. A breach of privacy would then be an infringement of property rights, which would have the advantage that rules and regulations in this area are more clearly defined than in the area of privacy. These approaches leave open , or avoid, the question of what exactly the status of privacy is. Is it a situation, a right, a claim, a form of control, a value (Gavison, 1995,p . 334)? Furthermore, there are other classifications that affect what we mean by privacy. One can find mention of privacy in a physical or psychological sense (Velasquez, 1998). It can be seen as a descriptive category or a normative one (Tavani & Moor, 2001).

What is important in relation to workplace surveillance is that it is closely related to ICT. Without new technologies, most of the current ways of surveilling employees would not be possible. ICT has thus been identified as one of the prime reasons for the rise in the importance of the concept of privacy. This is not really new, as the seminal paper by Warren and Brandeis in 1890 was already motivated by new technologies (photography). Today, a close relationship between the use of ICT and privacy concerns is generally recognised (Anderson et al., 1993; Johnson, 2001, 2001b; Mason, 1986; Moor, 2000; O Boyle, 2002; Robison, 2000). Another aspect of society with a large impact on privacy is the economy. Traditionally, the state was seen as the biggest threat to privacy and the most likely candidate to use surveillance. This has changed in conjunction with the introduction of ICT. Nowadays, companies have huge incentives to collect data concerning their customers as well as their employees , which makes them the most likely entities to use surveillance (Ball, 2003; Castells, 1997; Dubbeld, 2002; Himanen, 2001; Rogerson, 1998; Tavani & Moor, 2001). This explains why there is an increasing interest in employee surveillance as expressed in this book.

In order to understand the arguments against surveillance, it is also important to see what status privacy has. There are two fundamental possibilities: one states that privacy is an absolute right or good, whereas the other sees privacy as relative. The former argument believes that privacy is something like a natural right, maybe a human right, something that must be defended as an end in itself (Spinello, 1997). A similar way of expressing the same idea is to call privacy an intrinsic value (Tavani, 2000; Moor, 2000). On the other hand, privacy can also be seen as relative, which means that its value is in something that it causes or affects. Another way of putting this is to call privacy an instrumental value, meaning that it is instrumental in achieving something beyond itself. It is not possible to follow the fine points of this debate here, but we can note that in both cases, privacy is seen as something that is worth protecting. Also, in both cases, privacy is limited, as every right or value is limited when it collides with an equal or higher right or value (Britz, 1999; Introna, 2000). The difficult problem is to determine where these limits are located. Given that a wide interpretation of privacy will make surveillance difficult, we are now back to the problem of surveillance, and we can now recount the arguments against surveillance.




Electronic Monitoring in the Workplace. Controversies and Solutions
Electronic Monitoring in the Workplace: Controversies and Solutions
ISBN: 1591404568
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 161

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