Privacy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to control the flow of information about themselves. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity although it is often most highly valued by people who are publicly known. Privacy can be seen as an aspect of security—one in which trade-offs between the interests of one group and another can become particularly clear.

The right against unsanctioned invasion of privacy by the government, corporations or individuals is part of many countries' laws, and in some cases, constitutions or privacy laws. Almost all countries have laws which in some way limit privacy, for example taxation normally requires passing on information about earnings. In some countries individual privacy may conflict with freedom of speech laws and some laws may require public disclosure of information which would be considered private in other countries and cultures.

Privacy may be voluntarily sacrificed, normally in exchange for perceived benefits, but often with little benefit and very often with specific dangers and losses. An example of voluntary sacrifice is entering a sweepstakes or competitions. A person gives personal details (often for advertising purposes) in order to have a chance of winning a prize. Another example is where information voluntarily shared is later stolen or misused such as in identity theft.

Contents 1 Privacy and security trade offs 2 Reasons for maintaining privacy 3 Reasons for not maintaining privacy 4 Types of privacy 4.1 Bodily privacy 4.2 Political privacy 4.3 Medical privacy 4.4 Genetic privacy 4.5 Internet privacy 4.6 Privacy from corporations 4.7 Privacy from government interference 4.7.1 Effects of war upon privacy 4.7.2 Arguments for government monitoring 4.7.3 Arguments against government monitoring 5 Privacy experts 6 Privacy in the workplace 6.1 European workplace privacy 7 U.S. workplace privacy 8 Privacy laws 8.1 Bodies and organizations 8.2 Other 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links

[edit] Privacy and security trade offs

Privacy and security can be in conflict, requiring trade-offs between the two, or privacy can enhance security. For the collection of taxes it is in the interests of government if one's earnings and income are well known. On the other hand, that same information may be used to select someone or his family as a good target for kidnapping. In these narrow terms, one group's interest is to keep the information private. One of the goals of computer security is confidentiality. Identity theft, for example, is a security problem that is created from a lack of privacy or failure of confidentiality.

Privacy can also have free speech ramifications. In some countries privacy has been used as a tool to suppress free speech. One person's speech can sometimes be considered a violation of another's person's privacy. In various cases the US Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment trumps privacy. In Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001) Docket Number: 99-1687, US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that someone cannot be held liable in court for publishing or broadcasting intercepted contents of information, as long as that information is of public concern. Conversely, the Constitutional right to privacy is built in part on the First Amendment.

Census data is another area where such trade-offs become apparent. Accurate data are useful for planning future services (whether commercial or public sector), on the other hand, almost all censuses are released only in a way which does not allow identification of specific individuals. Often this is done by randomly altering the data and directly reducing accuracy.

On the other hand some trade-offs may be regarded as false by some observers. Identity card systems, which may reduce privacy, are often presented as a method of increasing security. However, Bruce Schneier and others have argued that these systems may reduce security.

[edit] Reasons for maintaining privacy

If "information is power", then it follows that personal information in whatever form, or of whatever nature, confers power to the owner of that information.

Few individuals, organizations or governments refrain from making judgements based on their own self interest and the information gained through the loss of privacy, tends towards ultimately being used to wrestle power and autonomy away from the individual.

The loss of privacy, in a modern and evolving technological age, risks putting intolerable strains on existing democracies by empowering governments beyond their ability to contain their natural inclinations towards totalitarian actions and recurring dictatorial political forms.

Until the corrosive effects of power on the human psyche can be understood and sympathetically managed, it seems likely that increasing losses of privacy will inevitably lead to corresponding losses of personal freedoms, if only through the psychological effects on the individual, from the perception that they are being continuously and relentlessly scrutinised. This has been referred to as a 'technique of mass submission'.

The political effects of sustained and expanding losses of privacy also risks the eventual perception that even the secret ballot of the democratic vote is compromised. In an increasingly paranoid and totalitarian state this becomes a relevant factor. Also see Totalitarian democracy.

It has been reasoned that privacy encourages information sharing between individuals, because it creates an environment in which any perpetuated information that does not reference a source can be identified as rumor. If information is shared voluntarily, then facts can generally be approved by references to one or several identified sources, and there are fewer chances for the perpetuation of mistrust. The reasoning behind this is that the intention of a privacy violation does not matter for its effect to perpetuate the environment of rumors that is the root cause of intolerance. Philosophers often ask how people can choose to trust each other if they cannot hide from each other.

One may also wish to maintain privacy by withholding information from others because of stigma (as in the case of some "closeted" homosexuals), or for protection from the law (as when criminals hide information to prevent others from catching them). Often, information (such as bank account numbers or, in the USA, the Social Security Number) may be used against the owner of the information, for example to commit fraud. By maintaining privacy, information owners hope to avoid this fraud or limit effects from it.

[edit] Reasons for not maintaining privacy

It has been reasoned that privacy discourages information sharing between individuals which in turn can lead to mistrust and intolerance amongst people and perpetuate false information. If information can be shared widely then facts can generally be verified through many different sources and there are less chances of inaccuracies. It has also been reasoned that Privacy can perpetuate stigma and intolerance. The reasoning behind this is that restrictions on information about people can inhibit and discourage collection and finding of data that is required for an accurate analysis and discussion on the causes and root of the stigma and intolerance. Philosophers often ask how people can learn to accept each other if they cannot know about each other. Issues have also been raised that privacy can encourage criminal activity as it makes it easier for criminals to hide their unlawful activities.

More pragmatically, privacy sometimes is not maintained because there is a benefit provided by disclosure. For example, a potential employer is given a résumé/CV in order to evaluate someone's appropriateness for employment. Or, contact information, e-mail addresses most often, are provided in exchange for access to some useful information, like a "white paper".

List of some court cases in the United States that reviewed the issue of privacy:

In a unanimous ruling justices at the Supreme Court of New Hampshire ruled: "A generalized concern for personal privacy is insufficient to meet the state's burden of demonstrating the existence of a sufficiently compelling reason to prevent public access." The state Supreme Court ruled that financial information people disclose in divorce cases is not entitled to sweeping privacy protections. The court said the right of access to court proceedings and records predates both the state and federal constitutions. The decision relied heavily on the New Hampshire Constitution, which says power comes from the people. "To that end, the public's right of access to governmental proceedings and records shall not be unreasonably restricted," the Constitution says. The Associated Press v. New Hampshire.

In Davis v. Freedom of Information Commission, 259 Conn. 45 (2001) The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the DPPA does not apply to other government agencies who receive personal information from the State DMV in the course of their normal government functions. Therefore, records compiled by the office of the tax accessor, which were based on state motor vehicle records, were publicly accessible.

Excerpt of a ruling by Judge Kenneth Johnson, Indianapolis, Indiana, "The great public interest in the reporting, investigation and prosecution of child abuse trumps even the patient's interest in privileged communication with her physicians because, in the end, both the patient and the state are benefited by the disclosure," Johnson wrote.

In Las Vegas Review v. Board of County Commissioners, August 18, 2000., Nevada's highest court ruled that Records showing the telephone numbers of incoming and outgoing calls on publicly owned cellular telephones are not confidential or private.

In Erwin Eastmond v. Canadian Pacific Railway & Privacy Commissioner of Canada (June 11, 2004) The Court found that CP could collect Eastmond's personal information without his knowledge or consent because it benefited from the exemption in paragraph 7(1)(b) of PIPEDA, which provides that personal information can be collected without consent if "it is reasonable to expect that the collection with the knowledge or consent of the individual would compromise the availability or the accuracy of the information and the collection is reasonable for purposes related to investigating a breach of an agreement.

[edit] Types of privacy

[edit] Bodily privacy

Privacy may include preserving modesty and preventing embarrassment by preventing a person seeing someone else while naked or in underwear, or while using a toilet or urinal, having sex, etc. For that purpose a person, a couple, or a larger group of people, may seek temporary seclusion.

[edit] Political privacy

Main article: Political privacy

People may wish to keep their political viewpoints secret for a variety of reasons - political groupings may be able to commit violence either when successful (using the powers of the state) or when defeated (using their own militias for example). This may be used to punish those who disagree with them. Many people have been tortured or killed for their political views by, for example, dictators, terrorist groups, and often forces linked to democratically elected politicians.

The secret ballot, which is common in democratic elections worldwide, is designed to maintain political privacy to limit any discrimination against people voting according to their political views. Such discrimination does not always target minorities and losers of the election: in many cases, influential minorities (e.g. a group of businessmen) might possibly force the majority (the employees) to vote according to their needs, if the vote were open.

Outing of individuals can be done for several political reasons; either as a negative campaigning tactic designed to lower the outed person's reputation, or by others of a similar sexual orientation who seek openness over privacy.

Privacy is an issue of autonomy, at the Constitutional level in the United States. States are constrained in matters pertaining to privacy by the U.S. Constitution, as well as their own. In 1969 the Supreme Court made the right to privacy explicit in Griswold v Connecticut. The Court found the right to privacy implied in the Constitution in the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Constitutional right to privacy continues to be recognized by the courts in accordance with that decision, but only with respect to certain classes of information.

The First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The First Amendment's implications for privacy are that people under surveillance are not likely to express views, or go to assemblies or religious meetings of which the agencies of surveillance are likely to disapprove. The Court has ruled that the right to privacy covers the right to read --- unobserved --- material that the federal government finds objectionable. Specifically, in Lamont v Postmaster General the Court stated that "any addressee is likely to feel some inhibition in sending for literature which Federal officials have condemned." The freedom to read is actually the freedom to read without fear of surveillance Cohen, 96. The Court has also found a right to privacy in association and political activities. In addition, the right to privacy covers memberships and personal associations NAACP v Alabama, 1964, confirming the "right of members to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others."

The Third Amendment states:

"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

The Fourth Amendment states:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Together the Third and Fourth Amendments create a region of privacy -- the home -- a space inviolable by the government except in constrained circumstances. These amendments suggest that what one does in one's own home is not the business of the government. Note that members in the case cited above of the NAACP were found to have not only the First Amendment right to associate, but also the right to "pursue private interest privately," as one might in one's own home.

The Fifth Amendment states:

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Just as the government cannot imprison citizens without charge, government cannot require that citizens speak. The implication is that the government has no right to hear all that a person could know and might say, thereby intruding into personal thoughts. As the Fourth Amendment limits the government's right to search papers, the Fifth Amendment denies it the right to search thoughts .

The Ninth Amendment states:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Without the Ninth Amendment, the right to privacy could not be found in the Constitution. Since the Constitution nowhere specifically identifies the right to privacy explicitly. If the Ninth Amendment's did not specify the disposition rights other than those it explicitly mentions, the right to privacy as implied by the other Amendments could not exist.

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment states:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

According to Section 1of the Fourteenth Amendment of the rights set forth in the Constitution can be abridged by the States. If the federal government has no right to your home, speech, or papers, neither do the state governments. The rights that together provide privacy from the federal government provide privacy from state and local governments as well. (Sections 2-5 of the Fourteenth Amendment address apportionment of representatives, Civil War disqualification and Civil War debt, and thus are not of interest here.)

The Constitutional right to privacy differs from state civil laws in that it is focused on individual autonomy rather than the communications of others. The right to privacy allows individuals to take certain actions without fear of retribution, rather than prevent the publication of certain types of information as state laws governing privacy do. In fact, privacy rights prohibiting intrusion into seclusion and publication of private information have been limited at the federal level precisely because of the First Amendment's protection of speech rights.

The Supreme Court has determined that there is no constitutional right to privacy or expectation of privacy in financial matters in US v Miller which is NOT the same as there being no statutory right to privacy. Consumer's voluntarily supply financial information to financial institutions, the information is owned by those institutions, and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy for such information because by its nature it must be shared in the course of business. Some advocates of privacy rights propose a property law, whereby individuals would be construed to own information about themselves. Thus far property laws have been used primarily to limit privacy by declaring information about one person to be the property of another and not properly subject to the oversight of the subject.

Constitutional protections of privacy have been applied inconsistently. Often a delay extends between the introduction of new technologies and the extension of privacy rights to the users of those technologies. Consider the case of telephony. In 1928 the Supreme Court determined that no person has a right to privacy in telephone conversations (Olmstead v United States, 1928) ruling that recording telephone conversations was not a search under the Fourth Amendment because the conversation left the defendant's home on lines that could not be secured. The Court stated that since the technology was inherently without security, people knowingly sacrificed privacy when they communicated using the telephone. The Court reasoned that telephone correspondents knew that the signals went outside their homes and only the most naive would expect privacy. Olmstead reads: "There was no searching. There was no seizure. The evidence was secured by the use of the sense of hearing and that only. There was no entry of the houses or offices of the defendants. . . . The language of the amendment cannot be extended and expanded to include telephone wires, reaching to the whole world from the defendant's home or office. The intervening wires are not part of his house or office, any more than are the highways along which they are stretched." Brandeis' incomparable dissent rings true today.

[edit] Medical privacy

Main article: Medical privacy

Information concerning a person's health is kept confidential to the patient. In most countries, the patient must consent before anyone other than the staff of medical institutions may view the information. The reasons for keeping medical information private may include possible discrimination against people with a certain medical condition. However, it may be illegal to fail to disclose medical information in certain cases (for example, in the United Kingdom in 2001, Stephen Kelly was found guilty of "culpable and reckless" conduct for failing to tell his girlfriend he was HIV-positive before having unprotected sex with her ^[1]). Also see remarks on the Roe v Wade abortion decision below.

[edit] Genetic privacy

The concept of “genetic discrimination” and the associated need for confidentiality of genetic information, or "genetic privacy," have only recently entered our vocabulary. In numerous cases around the world, individuals and family members have been barred from employment or lost their health and life insurance based on an apparent or perceived genetic abnormality.^{[citation needed]} Many of those who have suffered discrimination are clinically healthy and exhibit none of the symptoms of a genetic disorder. Often, genetic testing results in uncertain probabilities rather than clear-cut predictions of disease. Even in the most definitive genetic conditions, which are few in number, there remains a wide variability in the timing of onset and severity of clinical symptoms. Employers have access to medical/genetic information, which may be used to discriminate against their employees.

[edit] Internet privacy

Main article: Internet privacy

Using the Internet can leave a trail of information about one's activity. The reason is that the Internet is a constellation of privately and publicly owned servers and computers, each of which are able to retain data. Thus, when you enter a search term into the searchbox of any search engine (e.g., Yahoo, Google, even Wikipedia), not only is the search engine capable of returning relevant results to the keyword you entered, it is able to save or retain the fact that the keyword was entered in the first instance. If you identified yourself to the search engine prior to entering the keyword; for example, if you logged onto Yahoo or Wikipedia or any other application, the keyword(s) you entered into the search box may be associated with your account. Even if you have not identified yourself to the system or Website you are using, useful statistics and metrics may be compiled from the collective use of the search box. For example, the owner of the system (i.e., the search engine in this example), can determine which keywords or categories appear to be of the greatest interest to the users of the system or website. This information may help inform the search engine of how to develop its content, or its advertisers. And while reference to search engines is used for conceptual simplicity, data retention is not limited to entering a term into a search box. Any type of interaction with a website will suffice -- any mouse click on the page (e.g., on a banner advertisement or other hyperlink) may be recorded. In addition, the remote servers hosting websites accessed by you may be able to store data reflecting the IP address and other demographic data from each computer to which it provides access (e.g., type of browser, type of operating system, etc.). Generally, use of privacy software or reliance upon a proxy server may increase the level of personal privacy protection of a user on the Internet. However, it is not merely the remote servers being accessed over the Internet which store data about a user "surfing" the Internet. A user's own computer application may store data, for example, a web browser's history, cache or logs, about the user's activities.

An additional Internet privacy concern involves the erosion of “security through obscurity” as web search engines provide increased access to personal information online, such as public records, social networking profiles, biographical webpages or online resumes.[1] [2] [3]

[edit] Privacy from corporations

Many companies exist with a goal to obtain as much information about customers as possible, through loyalty cards and other kinds of customer schemes. This data is immensely valued by other companies, which may pay large amounts of money for access to this information for marketing purposes (often telemarketing). A huge public backlash against telemarketers led to the introduction of the National Do Not Call Registry in the United States, and similar systems in other countries.

With the increasing amount of e-mail spam being sent, often advertising products for sale, solutions to prevent the loss of privacy (as the spammers use social engineering and other similar practices to keep an up-to-date list of email addresses) have been developed. See e-mail spam for more information.

Laws regulating the use of personal information by companies have diverged significantly between Europe and the United States, with strong regulation in the European Union and requirements for explicit permission before personal information can be reused. Conversely, this area is largely unregulated in the USA. In the USA, the free speech provision of the First Amendment provides many protections against regulating the sharing and use of personal information.

[edit] Privacy from government interference

As a human right, privacy primarily relates to government actions, not private actions. Human rights guarantees do not impose broad obligations on governments to protect individuals against possible invasions of their privacy by other individuals. However Constitutional and international guarantees require that restrictions on freedom of expression, even in the interests of privacy, must meet a very high standard of legality and necessity. Governments in many countries are given powers to breach privacy. This is often the case in criminal investigations, where police are permitted to search for and seize private property from places where they would otherwise be prohibited from entering without probable cause to do so. Telephone tapping, where all information being transmitted over a phone line is secretly monitored, is often permissible for Law Enforcement Agencies, although it usually requires permission from a court. This can then be used as evidence in trials where it is used to secure convictions against criminals. However, in the past, numerous cases have been overturned in the United States because the wiretap was not legally allowed. Other ways to monitor individuals or conduct mass surveillance include closed-circuit television cameras, which are placed in public and forward looking infrared cameras which are mounted on police helicopters.

The desirability of the government monitoring communications, whether permitted by law or not, is a common debate. Organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation argue that the right to privacy from the government is an inalienable human right and that it is up to the person whether they should have to disclose information. Other groups, including government agencies like the National Security Agency, maintain that the ability to monitor all communications aids in the prevention of criminal activity and terrorism.

[edit] Effects of war upon privacy

During periods of war, identity documents and similar artifacts have been introduced to establish the identity of the holder. These were used for security purposes — individuals who did not carry the required documents were assumed to be spies and could be interrogated. In World War I identity cards were introduced in the United Kingdom, but in 1919 compulsion to carry them was removed. They were reintroduced in World War II, but after the successful prosecution of Clarence Henry Willcock for refusing to present his card to the police, the law was repealed in 1952. In this case, Lord Chief Justice Lord Goddard commented that identity cards "tend to make people resentful of the acts of the police".

In France, the new French national identity card, introduced following defeat in the Battle of France, helped the Vichy authorities identify 76,000 for deportation as part of the Holocaust.

Rights of the individual, including habeas corpus, often only apply in periods of peacetime. During the American Civil War in the United States, and during World War II in the United Kingdom, habeas corpus was suspended.

It is the opinion of some that the September 11, 2001 attacks and the "War on Terrorism" declared by the United States government, has reduced the right to privacy. Proponents of this belief cite the introduction of bills such as the USA PATRIOT Act, and the President's power as Commander in Chief to use whatever force necessary to defeat the enemy, as granted by congressional act. Opponents cite existing U.S. laws governing privacy rights of citizens, such as the FISA court, and limitations against domestic spying by agencies such as the NSA, DIA, and CIA.

In 2005, the Labour United Kingdom government introduced a bill, the Identity Cards Bill, which would create a national identity database and introduce a national identity card. The idea was initially revived after the September 11, 2001 attacks by the then-Home Secretary, David Blunkett, and became part of Labour's manifesto for the 2005 general election.

As of 2006, the right to privacy remains an important point of political debate in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries.

[edit] Arguments for government monitoring

• Increased crime detection - due to the placement of CCTV cameras, the success rate of conviction is increased as criminals are more likely to be convicted due to the increased ability to prove a suspect committed an offence.
• Prevention of terrorism - terrorist activities need coordination and this is often done using electronic equipment. If communications between devices can be monitored, the activities of terrorists can be prevented before any terrorist attacks are carried out, and their networks can be disclosed by network analysis and traffic analysis.

[edit] Arguments against government monitoring

• Surveillance infringes on civil liberties - there is a lack of anonymity if facial recognition systems can be used, for example, to identify protestors in a demonstration.
• CCTV cameras displace crime, rather than eliminate it - criminals move to areas where CCTV is not in place.
• Due to the enormous manpower required to operate and monitor, many crimes (even if recorded) go unnoticed for hours, days, or even months, while costing money for upkeep and wages.
• Monitoring can be used in committing crime, for example police officers have been caught using cameras to invade the personal privacy of women walking through airports.
• Gathering data about many people in one place (the monitoring centre) provides a valuable source of data which would fuel illegal activities if the integrity of the operators were ever compromised.
• The same technology used for disclosing networks of terrorists and criminals can be used by repressive regimes for finding dissidents, and allows easy blackmailing, blacklisting or prosecuting of people for their guilt by association (see the Second Red Scare for a set of historical examples). Its presence itself can provide a considerable chilling effect for political dissent.
• An increase in methods to track individuals and their movements could create a large distrust in the government.

[edit] Privacy experts

• Lauren Weinstein
• Christine A. Varney
• L Jean Camp
• Avi Rubin on privacy in voting
• Robert Ellis Smith editor of the privacy journal
• Anna Lysyanskaya anonymous credentials
• Alessandro Acquisti economics of privacy
• David H. Holtzman

[edit] Privacy in the workplace

[edit] European workplace privacy

The EU Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data limits and regulates the collection of personal information on individuals, including workers. Firms that monitor employees' use of e-mail, the internet or phones as part of their business practice, and do not tell employees or have not obtained employee consent to do so, can in most cases be sued under Article 8 the European Convention on Human Rights which provides for the right to respect for his private and family life. On the other hand, although EU law is clear that e-mail interception is illegal, the law is not totally clear as to whether companies may prohibit employees from sending private e-mails.^[2]

[edit] U.S. workplace privacy

In the United States, the situation is quite different. In 2005 for example, a survey of more than 500 U.S. companies found that over half had disciplined and about 1/4 had terminated (fired) an employee for "inappropriate" use of the internet [4].

The tools that are used for this surveillance are often caching Proxy servers that are also used for web-monitoring.

[edit] Privacy laws

Main article: Civil liberties

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in article 12, states:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Countries such as France protect privacy explicitly in their constitution (France's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen), while the Supreme Court of the United States has found that the U.S. constitution contains "penumbras" that implicitly grant a right to privacy against government intrusion, for example in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). Other countries without constitutional privacy protections have laws protecting privacy, such as the United Kingdom's Data Protection Act 1998 or Australia's Privacy Act 1988. The European Union requires all member states to legislate to ensure that citizens have a right to privacy, through directives such as Directive 95/46.

If the privacy of an individual is breached, the individual may bring a lawsuit asking for monetary damages. However, in the United Kingdom, some recent cases involving celebrities such as David Beckham, have resulted in defeat as the information has been determined in the courts to be in the public interest^[3]. In the United States, the right of freedom of speech granted in the First Amendment have limited the effects of lawsuits for breach of privacy.

Organisations such as Privacy International, a London-based non-governmental organisation formed in 1990, exist as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations. On the flip side organizations such as ARTICLE 19 a UK based non-governmental organization exist as a watchdog on governments using privacy as a tool for censorship and restrictions on free speech.

In the United States, Federal law regulating communications carriers prohibits the disclosure of customer phone records ^[4]. Breaches of this law in the private sector were found to be common, with sales of call detail information becoming the subject of Congressional inquiry. More recently, it has been revealed that the United States National Security Agency has been warehousing the call detail information of billions of individual phone calls for pattern analysis. Whether this was done in violation of law or through powers granted by Congress as part of the broader "War on Terrorism" is the subject of debate.

[edit] Bodies and organizations

• American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
• Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
• Privacy International

[edit] Other

• KPMG International
• Informational Self-Determination
• Civil liberties
• Data privacy
• Data retention
• Financial privacy
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
• RFID (radio frequency identification)
• Caller ID spoofing
• The Transparent Society, a non-fiction book by David Brin, foreseeing an erosion of the right to privacy in the future and why that might not be such a bad thing.
• Mass surveillance
• Printer identification encoding
• Secure communication
• Hepting vs. AT&T (a 2006 lawsuit in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation alleges AT&T allowed the NSA to tap the entirety of its clients' internet and Voice over IP communications)
• Big Brother Awards
• Vehicular communication systems

[edit] See also

• Griswold v. Connecticut

[edit] References

1. ^ Landmark Aids case begins in Scotland, from BBC News (retrieved 26 April 2005).
2. ^ Sylvia Mercado Kierkegaard (2005) Reading Your Keystroke: Whose Mail Is It? Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Publisher: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, Volume 3592 / 2005, Chapter: p. 256
3. ^ Does Beckham judgement change rules?, from BBC News (retrieved 27 April 2005).
4. ^ U.S. Code Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, Section 222

[edit] Further reading

• Dennis Bailey, Open Society Paradox: Why The Twenty-first Century Calls For More Openness--not Less, Brasseys Inc (November, 2004), hardcover, 224 pages, ISBN 1-57488-916-8
• Judith Wagner DeCew, 1997, In Pursuit of Privacy: Law, Ethics, and the Rise of Technology, Ithaca: Cornell University Press
• Ruth Gavison, "Privacy and the Limits of the Law," in Michael J. Gorr and Sterling Harwood, eds., Crime and Punishment: Philosophic Explorations (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2000, formerly Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1996), paperback, 552 pages, pp. 46-68.
• Robert O Harrow, No Place To Hide: Behind The Scenes Of Our Emerging Surveillance Society, Free Press or Simon and Schuster (January, 2005), hardcover, 304 pages, ISBN 0-7432-5480-5
• Adam D. Moore, 2003, “Privacy: Its Meaning and Value” American Philosophical Quarterly 40: 215-227
• William Parent, 1983, “Privacy, Morality and the Law”, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12: 269-88
• K. A. Taipale, "Technology, Security and Privacy: The Fear of Frankenstein, the Mythology of Privacy, and the Lessons of King Ludd," 7 Yale J. L. & Tech. 123 ; 9 Intl. J. Comm. L. & Pol'y 8 (Dec. 2004) (arguing for incorporating privacy protecting features in the construction of information systems through value sensitive design).
• Judith Jarvis Thomson, "The Right to Privacy," in Michael J. Gorr and Sterling Harwood, eds., Crime and Punishment: Philosophic Explorations (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2000, formerly Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 1995), 552 pages, pp. 34-46.

• Perry Metzger (1993) A Parable. http://cypherpunks.venona.com/date/1993/04/msg00559.html
• David H. Holtzman, Privacy Lost: How Technology Is Endangering Your Privacy, Jossey-Bass (September, 2006), hardcover, 278 pages, ISBN 0-7879-8511-2
• A. Westin, 1967, Privacy and Freedom, New York: Atheneum

[edit] External links

• Green Hell - The Freedom and Survival blog/privacy
• Generally Accepted Privacy Principles
• Privacy Commission Privacy Watch Review (and other resources)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation digital rights NGO
• Electronic Privacy Information Center a public interest research center
• Privacy International UK-based International privacy NGO
• Privacy University Learn , Explore and make your privacy 100% secure online.
• Privacy Spot privacy law blog
• The Privacy Place Research Center
• World Privacy Forum U.S. consumer education group
• Read Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Privacy
• "The Right to Privacy" (Warren and Brandeis) the seminal law review article for U.S. privacy law
• OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy describe principles behind many contemporary privacy laws
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• European Privacy Protection for Wikipedia Users on the blog of Jean-Baptiste Soufron

• Data Protection in the European Union, from the Directorate-General for Justice, Freedom and Security
• Genetic privacy and the law
• The condition of privacy in Italy
• European data protection and privacy law
• EU-IST news - IT security and privacy regulation - what is happening in Europe?
• Congress Erodes Privacy by Rep. Ron Paul, Ph.D.
• The Eternal Value of Privacy by Bruce Schneier from Wired magazine
• GlobalPOV Privacy and technology blog
• General theological view on citizen's rights of privacy in Islam
• Proposal for a Privacy Protection Guideline on Secret Personal Data Gathering and Transborder Flows of Such Data in the Fight against Terrorism and Serious Crime
• Opt-Out of Personally Identifiable Information Sharing Sample letter from a non-profit consumer group to opt-out of information sharing by financial institutions under the Financial Services Modernization Act.
• MySecureCyberspace: a resource for home users created by Carnegie Mellon CyLab