*Edited by* Mary C. Lacity · Lynda Coon

# **Human Privacy in Virtual and Physical Worlds** Multidisciplinary Perspectives

### Technology, Work and Globalization

Series Editors

Leslie P. Willcocks, Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK Mary C. Lacity, Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

The Technology, Work and Globalization series was developed to provide policy makers, workers, managers, academics and students with a deeper understanding of the complex interlinks and influences between technological developments, including information and communication technologies, work organizations and patterns of globalization. The mission of the series is to disseminate rich knowledge based on deep research about relevant issues surrounding the globalization of work that is spawned by technology.

Mary C. Lacity · Lynda Coon Editors

# Human Privacy in Virtual and Physical Worlds

Multidisciplinary Perspectives

*Editors*  Mary C. Lacity Sam M. Walton College of Business University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR, USA

Lynda Coon Honors College University of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR, USA

ISSN 2730-6623 ISSN 2730-6631 (electronic) Technology, Work and Globalization ISBN 978-3-031-51062-5 ISBN 978-3-031-51063-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51063-2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2024. This book is an open access publication.

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### Acknowledgments

We were able to offer this book as open source with funding from our research chairs from the Honors College and the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. We thank the intrepid honors students who inspired us with their interdisciplinary zeal for understanding privacy in all its complexities.

The preparation of this manuscript was a team effort. We thank Shermer Shamara Sutton, Shelby Gill, and Jishan Mahmud for help with formatting, finding citations, drawing figures, and securing image permissions. We also thank the team at Palgrave Macmillan, including Alec Selwyn and Geetha Chockalingam.

### Contents

### Notes on Contributors

**David Barrett** is an instructor in the Department of Philosophy. He received his Ph.D. from the University in 2012 and has taught either as a graduate student or faculty member for 15 years. His teaching has covered a majority of courses routinely offered by the department, including all of the lower-level courses and a variety of upper-division courses (involving graduate students). His area of specialization is the philosophy of mind, with areas of competence in ethics and epistemology. His past research has revolved around mind, with publications on the nature of mental states, the relationship of consciousness to attention, the nature of psychological explanation, and self-deception. Recently he was Co-PI receiving the Chancellor's Fund for Humanities and Performative Arts for the 2020 academic year for *Reasoning in the Digital Age: Challenges and Implications of an Epistemic Crisis*. This funding has pushed him into research on the ethics of technology and artificial intelligence. He is now currently interested in the effects of social media on political behaviors and attitudes, the impact of causal reasoning on data analytics involving possible discrimination, and also, of course, the development of a data ethics course for the Data Science program.

**Marlon Blackwell** is the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture and a Distinguished Professor in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He's earned many awards, including the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, which is the highest honor awarded by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In addition to being a full time faculty member, he is also the founder and principal at Marlon Blackwell Architects (MBA), based in Fayetteville Arkansas.

**Erran Carmel** is a Professor of Information Technology at the Kogod School of Business at American University in Washington D.C. Carmel is known for his expertise on the globalization of technology work especially global outsourcing. He wrote three books and well over one hundred articles. The pandemic—and the need for health credentials brought him into the world of decentralized identity.

**Daniel Conway** is teaching professor in the Department of Information Systems at the University of Arkansas. He has previously held positions at Indiana, Notre Dame, Florida, and several other universities. He is active in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence and has worked with dozens of companies. Dr. Conway is a member of the think tank of Cognitive World and served as the first professor in residence at Cisco Systems.

**Lynda Coon** is Professor of History and Dean of the Honors College at the University of Arkansas. In 2023, she organized a cross-disciplinary course called *Privacy*, recruiting professors from architecture, political science, engineering, medicine, business, philosophy, data science, and library sciences to teach the course. Coon's research focuses on the history of Christianity from circa 300–900. Her first book, *Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity*, explored the sacred biographies of holy women in late antiquity. Her second book, *Dark Age Bodies: Gender and Monastic Practice in the Early Medieval West*, focused on the ritual, spatial, and gendered worlds of monks in the Carolingian period (ca. 750–987). She is currently researching a book on imagining Jesus in the Dark Ages.

**William Cox** 223rd Cyberspace Operations Squadron Operations Superintendent. SMSgt Cox received his Master of Science degree in Cybersecurity from Liberty University in 2017. He has been in the military since 1998 where he has held many positions in cybersecurity. Most recently he has served as the Operations superintendent for the Arkansas Air National Guard's premier cyber unit. Bill is an Adjunct Faculty member at the University of Arkansas—Pulaski Technical College, where he teaches Cybersecurity and Information Technology courses.

**Christopher Farnell** is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department at the University of Arkansas. His research interests include Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure, Embedded System Design, FPGA Design, Advanced Control Algorithms, and Power Electronics. He is currently serving as an Associate Director for the National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission (NCREPT) located at the University of Arkansas. This 12,000 ft2 laboratory provides the equipment, technical staff, and instrumentation to test and evaluate power electronic circuits and systems at realistic industrial and distribution voltage levels up to 6 MVA power ratings. Chris is the current chair for the IEEE Ozark Section, treasurer for the newly formed IEEE Computer Society Chapter, the CyberHogs Registered Student Organization (RSO) faculty mentor, and remains active in K-12 outreach activities.

**Brian S. Fugate** is the Chair of the Department of Supply Chain Management, and the Oren Harris Endowed Chair in Transportation at the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business. He serves on the World Food Logistics Organization SAC and is a co-author of The Blockchain Toolkit: A Supply Chain Manager's Guide to Understanding and Implementing Blockchain and Operations and Supply Chain Management: Enhancing Competitiveness and Customer Value. Brian is a former MIT Fulbright Senior Research Scholar, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the *Journal of Supply Chain Management*, and recipient of multiple awards for innovations in teaching, including AACSB's Innovations That Inspire Award. Brian previously worked in supply chain management and industrial engineering in the airline, consumer packaged goods, and automotive industries.

**Kiran K. Garimella** is an assistant professor of instruction in the Muma College of Business, University of South Florida. His research interests include blockchain and machine learning, specifically on the integration of machine learning into distributed ledger technology (blockchain), functional security of blockchain applications, dynamic consensus mechanisms, dynamic allocation of multi-party blockchain channels in supply chains, and distributed ecosystem formation. He is also the co-founder and chief scientist at KoreChain, the world's first, fully compliant, SEC-qualified, permissioned blockchain for the global private capital markets, launched in 2019 in 23 countries. He is the principal author of two books on business process management and "AI+Blockchain: A Brief Guide for Gamechangers" (with foreword by Dr. Vint Cerf, co-founder of the Internet). He has a Ph.D. in machine learning from the University of Florida's business school. He has numerous publications, including in Informs, IEEE, and WITS.

**Simon Hawkins** is Director of the Donaghey Scholars Honors Program and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. As a Fulbright Scholar, he pursued his doctoral research on language learning and national identity in Tunisia. His later research in Tunisia tackled a range of topics, including conflict between language use inside and outside the academy, nationalist and ideological imagery in currency, gender and modernity, the state construction of religion, cosmopolitanism, and social media, and the origins of the Arab Spring. Prior to his anthropological work, he researched national and international STEM education with the National Center for Improving Science Education. In addition to his academic work, he is a graduate of Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Clown College.

**D. Micah Hester** Ph.D., is chair and professor in the Department of Medical Humanities & Bioethics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He has published on the ethics of patient-provider relationships, end-of-life decision making, organ procurement, pediatric care, and more.

**Philip Huff** is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science department at UA Little Rock and Director of Cybersecurity Research at the Emerging Analytics Center. He has a 15-year history of cybersecurity management in the electric sector and is the co-founder of Bastazo, a company specializing in cybersecurity AI for the electric sector. While at UA Little Rock, he has developed multiple degree and certificate programs in cybersecurity and directs the Department of Energy Emerging Threat Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ET-ISAC) and NSA National Cyber Teaching Academy. He is also a CISSP.

**Mary C. Lacity** is the David D. Glass Chair and Distinguished Professor of Information Systems in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. She was previously Curators' Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri. She has held visiting positions at MIT, the London School of Economics, Washington University, and Oxford University. She is founding co-editor of the Springer (Palgrave) Series on *Technology, Work, and Globalization*, helping the series since 2006. She has published 33 books on the topics related to technology, work, and globalization, including authoring/co-editing 9 books in the series. Her work has been cited over 24,000 times, with an h-index of 64. **Sharon Mason** is an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA). Her research specialization is in contemporary epistemology, especially questions that concern reflection and perspective, epistemologies of ignorance, feminist standpoint theory, and science education. She has also published work in philosophical pedagogy on how to expand the early modern philosophical canon and on teaching philosophy as a way of life. She is a faculty associate in the STEM Residential College, a regular collaborator with the Norbert O. Schedler Honors College, and a supporting coach for the UCA Ethics Bowl team.

**Karl D. Schubert** is a Professor of Practice and serves as the Associate Director for the Data Science Program for the University of Arkansas College of Engineering, the Sam M. Walton College of Business, and the Fulbright College of Arts & Sciences. His research interests include data science and analytics, innovation, technology, and interdisciplinary project-based active learning methodologies. As part of his current role, Karl is leading a State-wide multi-college faculty and administration workgroup, with the Arkansas Center for Data Science as the Education & Workforce Development Research Theme for the NSF EPSCoR grant, to develop a consistent and collaborative interdisciplinary multi-college B.S. and Associate degree, and certificate program in Data Science, and led a team to develop a State-wide High School path for Data Science for the Arkansas Department of Education officially adopted December 2020, and he is developing an interdisciplinary multi-college Innovation Curriculum.

**Marc A. Scott** is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Supply Chain Management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. His research focuses on supply chain fulfillment operations; supply chain service operations and design, specifically within the areas of logistics, transportation, and mobility; and well as fulfillment and mobility-related technologies in the supply chain. Additionally, Marc serves as a research consultant and advisor to various supply chain service, transportation, logistics, retail, and public sector companies and associations. Prior to a variety of academic roles, Marc led supply chain teams in the retail industry and has worked in the applied research and consulting, public transportation, development banking, investment banking, energy, and manufacturing industries.

**Matthew A. Waller** is Dean Emeritus of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, where he also serves as Professor of Supply Chain Management. He was the recipient of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals' Distinguished Service Award in 2020 and is the former co-editor-in-chief of the *Journal of Business Logistics*. He also is co-author of *The Definitive Guide to Inventory Management*, *Purple on the Inside: How J.B. Hunt Transport Set Itself Apart in a Field Full of Brown Cows*, *Integrating Blockchain into Supply Chain Management: A Toolkit for Practical Implementation*, *Values-Driven Authentic Leadership*, and *The Dean's List: Leading a Modern Business School*.

**Katrina Windon** is the Collections Management and Processing Unit Head for the University of Arkansas Special Collections. She holds a Master of Science in Information Studies with a concentration in Archival Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and is certified by the Academy of Certified Archivists. Windon is a former Chair and Steering Committee member of the Society of American Archivists Privacy and Confidentiality Section, and is the co-author, with Lydia Tang, of "Archival Discretion: A Survey on the Theory and Practice of Archival Restrictions" in the *Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies*.

**Joshua Youngblood** is the Instruction and Outreach Unit Head for the Special Collections Division in the University of Arkansas Libraries, where he also serves as the history and rare books librarian and the curator of the Arkansas Collection. Before joining Special Collections in 2011, he was a member of the Florida Memory Project of the State Archives of Florida, served as the information officer of the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, and was a staff member of Florida Main Street in the Bureau of Historic Preservation. He has published on digital archival exhibiting and archival instruction programs, as well as on the history of Arkansas, lynching, and reform movements in the American South. A graduate of Florida State University, Youngblood is a certified archivist and a past president of the Society of Southwest Archivists.

### List of Figures

#### xvi LIST OF FIGURES

### List of Tables

## Introduction to Human Privacy in Virtual and Physical Worlds

### *Mary C. Lacity and Lynda Coon*

Defining Privacy The title of this book is *Human privacy in virtual and physical worlds*. Although the title may appear straightforward, the concepts it explores are far from simple. Just defining human privacy is a challenging endeavor. Consider the range of definitions for privacy that appear in scholarly journals and books:

• *From an economics journal:* "Privacy is used today in at least three senses. First, it is used to mean the concealment of information; indeed, this is its most common meaning today. Second, it is used

M. C. Lacity (B) Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
L. Coon

© The Author(s) 2024 M. C. Lacity and L. Coon (eds.), *Human Privacy in Virtual and Physical Worlds*, Technology, Work and Globalization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51063-2\_1

Honors College, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
to mean peace and quiet, as when someone complains that telephone solicitations are an invasion of his privacy. Third, it is used as a synonym for freedom and autonomy." (Posner, 1981, p. 405).

From these five definitions, readers may observe varied interpretations of privacy across academic disciplines. Some authors provide very narrow views of privacy while other authors acknowledge that even within a discipline, there is no common definition. One major contribution of this book is its ability to confront readers with both familiar and unfamiliar readings of privacy in all its complexity.

The term "virtual world" featured in the book's title refers to digital spaces that depend on computer technologies. In these spaces, privacy is commonly understood in terms of information privacy or communication privacy. Conversely, the term "physical world" points to analog spaces where individuals are not connected to computing devices. In this realm, privacy is often thought of in terms of bodily or territorial privacy.

While the distinction between the virtual and physical worlds serves as a helpful framework for introducing the book's comprehensive aims, this dichotomy is ultimately misleading. This ambiguity stems from the increasing interaction between the virtual and physical realms in today's world.

Communications privacy, for example, can relate to preventing unauthorized eavesdropping in the physical world or deterring similar invasions in online communications. To illustrate the *interaction* between the physical and virtual worlds, consider a face-to-face conversation in the physical realm that is digitally recorded without knowledge or consent. This recording could then be stored or disseminated in the virtual world, highlighting the complex interplay between physical and virtual realms.

In addition to grappling with the tension between the virtual and physical worlds, readers will explore a variety of other dichotomies in this book. These dichotomies include distinctions between public and private, descriptive and prescriptive approaches to privacy, the intrinsic versus instrumental value of privacy, and between privacy and security. More broadly, the book examines the tension between the best interests, rights, and preferences of the individual as compared to those of the group.

Viewing Privacy from Multiple Disciplines Addressing privacy in the modern context is what is often termed a "wicked problem." Coined by Rittel and Weber in 1973, this concept refers to a problem that is socially complex, involving multiple stakeholders with differing perceptions, preferences, and levels of power. This book aims to expand scholars' understanding of privacy by introducing perspectives on human privacy from humanistic, social scientific, design, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines.

Most of the authors of these chapters initially collaborated to teach an interdisciplinary course on privacy to honors students from across the State of Arkansas and the Netherlands in the summer of 2023. One of us, Lynda Coon, who is the Dean of the Honors College, along with Noah Pittman, the Associate Dean, conceived and organized the course. They recruited faculty from diverse disciplines to each teach a module. As the course unfolded, we quickly realized that faculty members themselves gained valuable insights from interdisciplinary engagement. Eager to share this collective wisdom more broadly, we invited scholars from different departments to offer academic overviews that elucidate how their respective fields conceptualize, investigate, and recommend strategies to protect human privacy.

We guided the authors to make their work accessible to academics outside their own discipline. This meant clarifying terms and concepts that are often taken for granted within their own fields. Each chapter, therefore, begins with an overview of how the author's discipline approaches the study of privacy before diving into specialized topics. Our aim is to inspire other academics to broaden their research perspectives on privacy, moving beyond the limitations of a single disciplinary lens.

This introductory chapter sets up the tripartite structure for the entire book: foundations of human privacy, technical views on privacy, and domain-specific views of privacy. Both philosophy and anthropology underpin our understanding of human privacy as a construct deeply embedded in culture, psychology, and society, encompassing norms and values. Philosophy further delves into the ethics of privacy, shifting the discussion from merely defining privacy to what it ought to be. Technical perspectives on this subject aim to protect human privacy in an era where technologies increasingly intrude upon our lives, such as surveilling behaviors, collecting data, and monetizing information—often unbeknownst to us and without our explicit consent (Zuboff, 2019). The domain-specific views of privacy include perspectives from the fields of architecture, healthcare, archival, and supply chain disciplines.

#### *Foundations of Human Privacy*

Chapter 2, "Exploring Privacy from a Philosophical Perspective," provides this volume with its intellectual and ethical anchor. Philosopher Sharon Mason deliberates historical definitions of privacy expressing tensions between the public and the private, in which the public and its utilitarian "good" often outweigh the importance of privacy to the individual. Surveying various philosophical paradigms swirling around the notion of privacy from Greek antiquity through the artificial intelligence revolution of the present day, Mason notes that what we moderns may privilege as a fundamental right of humans—the right to privacy—is a relative latecomer on the historical stage.

For ancient Greek philosophers, most famously Plato (d. 348 BCE) and Aristotle (d. 322 BCE), the concept of the public good thoroughly overshadowed thoughts about protecting one's personal space, physical or mental. Public service in the world of the Greek *polis* or city-state triumphed over the pursuit of one's own interests. In fact, the Greek term *idios*, referring to "one's own," represents the origin of the modern English word "idiot" because ancient Athenian citizens believed that those who stuck to their own or inhabited marginal spaces to the one side of civic government had more in common with animals and monsters than they did with their compatriots—clearly a negative register of selfhood.

Philosophical stars from the eighteenth century ran with classicizing comprehensions of the private. For David Hume (d. 1776), the private was the reserve of personal interest, existing outside the scope of governmental control. Mason rightly notes that the industrial revolution and its technological interventions sparked the first major Western rewriting of the role of privacy in society. In the nineteenth century, theorists of the private–public divide introduced the concept of the "inviolate personality," that is, the "right to one's personality" as free from external pressures. This shift in the cultural reading of privacy partially stemmed from advancements in print culture, bringing to the broad population gossip tracts and pamphlet diatribes against well-known persons, thereby foregrounding the idea that privacy exists as a kind of reified, natural human right.

This historical trajectory shot western constructions of privacy into the realm of inalienable rights, where it joined the company of other nebulous products of the Enlightenment, such as "liberty" and "equality." From there, philosophers added conversations about the intrinsic value of privacy into the intellectual mix, debates about the degree to which privacy inhabits the space of an inalienable right. Mason transfers abstract, philosophical discussion about the intrinsic nature of philosophy to the critical themes covered in this book: security, transparency, and democracy, thereby offering an exceptional theoretical framework for the chapters that address artificial intelligence (AI), Web 3, blockchain, supply chain, health care, big data, and more. Here, ethical dilemmas complexify notions of privacy, especially since privacy has become increasingly a commodity of exchange in which wealthier players can buy and sell at higher rates than those with fewer resources. Overall, Mason stands back from reading privacy purely as a commodity by offering a provocative interpretation of privacy as a key component in Western constructions of the self, an ability to claim one's existence as a human in an era disrupted by technological surveillance of personhood in its most intimate details.

Chapter 3, "What's so special about private parts," is a tour-de-force through global readings of privacy within the shifting landscape of what it means to be "public." Cultural Anthropologist Simon Hawkins centers his reading of privacy strongly on different political and cultural spaces: North Africa, the Middle East, the United Kingdom (U.K.), and Eastern Europe. His analysis problematizes a progressive reading of privacy; that is, privacy as the litmus test of more developed and sophisticated cultures, a kind of *natural* right for citizens in those spaces. Rather, in Hawkins' capable hands, privacy becomes a moving target influenced by vectors of class, race, ethnicity, gender, political persuasion, and the positioning of the body in space. Three objects glue this thick analysis together: bike, door, and toilet.

**Bike.** Hawkins begins his tour with an event taking place in central London—*World Naked Bike Day*—in which cohorts of nude bicyclists disrupt western notions of privacy by exhibiting their private parts within the full gaze of urban city-dwellers.  The bikers' collective presence, however, safeguards their own nudity from intense surveillance, thus complexifying further the idea of privacy in the very public space of a bustling city.

**Door.** Moving from the affluent ranks of nude bikers, Hawkins turns his attention to a working-class neighborhood of Cairo, Egypt, al-Zawiya al-Hamra, the brainchild of modernizing President Anwar el-Sadat (d. 1981). Here, newly constructed doors leading into apartments mark the intrusion of western notions of privacy onto spaces where these ideas sit uncomfortably with the historical rhythms of communal practice. What in the United States (U.S.) might comfort a viewer—the door as indicator of intimate, familial space—transmutes into a darker presence et al.- Zawiya al-Hamra. Here, the door functions as a roadblock to the kind of communal intimacy shared among extended families, who previously circulated in and out of each other's abodes. The fallout opens a window onto the negative side of universalizing concepts of privacy.

**Toilet.** Door *cum* signifier of privacy does not hold up to the test of time. Ancient cultures, like that of Classical Athens, possessed (seemingly) strict divides between the public and the private, the latter being heavily associated with elite, urban female bodies. Yet this same culture embraced the material reality of the communal toilet, a practice shared by ancient Romans. What a modern reader might consider the ultimate marker of privacy—defecating in spaces off limits to an audience—evaporates in the gap between the ancient and the contemporary, another indication that notions of privacy remain historically unstable.

Hawkins' chapter sets the theoretical agenda for this volume. He locates places, where shifting political structures, such as the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, compel women into the public and men into the private. He contests the American "white-picket fence" as an icon of privacy. Finally, Hawkins so successfully problematizes the very idea of privacy that readers walk away challenged to rethink the map of the fictional divide between the private and the public.

#### *Technical Views of Privacy*

The authors of Chapters 4 through 8 are experts in technology-related fields, including computer science, data science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering, and information systems. These chapters provide a comprehensive analysis of both the threats to, and potential solutions for, online privacy. The authors of Chapter 4 note that maintaining privacy on the Internet is challenging due to the lack of defined boundaries and varying laws across countries that personal data may traverse. Unlike the physical world where entering a new jurisdiction is clearly marked, online data in virtual worlds can flow through multiple countries and be subject to different regulations and surveillance levels, often without the user's awareness.

The five technology chapters focus upon *information privacy*, which can be defined as "the ability of individuals to control the terms under which their personal information is acquired and used" (Culnan & Bies, 2003, p. 326). Specializing in technology-related disciplines, these chapters explore the safeguarding of *personally identifiable information* (PII), which encompasses data that can identify or verify an individual or a group of people (AICPA/CICA, 2020). Examples of PII range from basic details like name and home address to more sensitive information such as criminal or healthcare records, and extend to online activity data like IP addresses, email accounts, and website cookies.

How can PII be protected better? Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the human aspect of privacy protection, including government regulations, industry standards, organizational practices, and individual behaviors to safeguard privacy. Chapters 6 through 8 interrogate new technical approaches to privacy protection, including Web3, multi-party computation, and zero-knowledge proofs. Both human and technical solutions are needed to better protect PII.

Chapter 4, titled "Privacy in the Digital Age: Navigating the Risks and Benefits of Cybersecurity Measures," is authored by Chris Farnell, Philip Huff, and William Cox. The chapter opens with a definition of *cybersecurity* as "the protective actions taken to safeguard digital information and processes that an organization deems necessary for its successful operations." The authors outline the most common threats to cybersecurity, categorizing them as attack vectors: Denial of Service (DoS), Man in the Middle (MitM), and Spoofing Attacks.

 A MitM assault occurs when an external attacker intercepts, modifies, or suppresses information traveling over the network, deceiving both the sending and receiving computers into believing they are communicating normally. In the case of spoofing attacks, an illegitimate actor masquerades as a legitimate one, tricking an unsuspecting individual into revealing PII. Robust cybersecurity practices are essential for defending against these types of attacks.

The authors delve into ways organizations and individuals can protect PII. For organizations, they recommend following the Privacy Control Catalog provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This standard offers guidance on administrative, technical, and physical controls. For individuals, the authors suggest using nonattributable networks like The Onion Router (TOR), privacy-enhancing operating systems such as the Debian Linux-based Tails OS, and adopting protective social behaviors, including the deployment of multiple online personas.

Chapter 5, "Data Governance, Privacy, and Ethics," written by Karl Schubert and David Barrett, expands on the theme of how organizations should safeguard privacy. While the preceding chapter surveyed various types of cybersecurity attacks, this chapter commences by discussing the repercussions of data breaches for both individuals and organizations. The financial implications outlined are staggering, highlighting the need for governments and organizations to improve their practices.

On the government front, the authors explore key legal and regulatory frameworks that direct data privacy and ethics. These include the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and several U.S. federal and State laws. The authors observe that European actions, particularly through the GDPR, are far more advanced than those in the rest of the world.

Given the weaker regulatory landscape in the U.S., the onus falls on organizations to self-govern when it comes to data. To assist in this effort, the authors present a comprehensive framework for data governance aimed at protecting PII and ensuring the ethical use of data. Importantly, they also acknowledge the organizational challenges involved in adopting data governance and offer advice for overcoming resistance.

Chapter 6, titled "Web2 versus Web3 information privacy: an Information Systems discipline perspective" by Mary Lacity and Erran Carmel, also centers on protecting PII, but with a technical solution called Web3. The authors begin by summarizing the Information Systems (IS) research on information privacy. First, they note that IS scholars primarily examine online information privacy in the context of Web2, which is the dominant version of Internet. With Web2, individuals rely on centralized platform providers to access online services using accounts and passwords; individuals also submit other PII as required by the centralized platform providers. Second, the authors explain how IS scholars have conceptualized and scrutinized information privacy in terms of an individual's information *privacy concerns* and have examined why these concerns do not prevent individuals from *disclosing personal information* with centralized platform providers; the phenomenon is called the *privacy paradox*.

The authors mine four theoretical explanations for the privacy paradox: (1) *privacy calculus*, where individuals assess the trade-offs between the risks and benefits of disclosing PII; (2) *privacy fatigue*, characterized by emotional exhaustion from continuous efforts to protect PII; (3) *trust in centralized platform providers*, which encourages users to share PII; and (4) *lack of user choice*, where PII disclosure is mandated by centralized platforms to access their services. Together, the four theories show how difficult it is to protect PII in Web2.

Introducing the concept of Web3, the authors present a revolutionary approach to enhancing online privacy. Web3 represents the next era of the Internet, founded on decentralized technologies and applications such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. In contrast to Web2, Web3 allows individuals to access services without revealing PII to a central authority. This improved privacy is technically facilitated through the integration of digital wallets, cryptography, and distributed ledgers, commonly known as blockchain. Although Web3 is still a new idea comprising emerging technologies, education plays a crucial role in accelerating its adoption.

Chapter 7, titled "Multi-party Computation: Privacy in Coopetition," is authored by Daniel Conway and Kiran Garimella. The authors present an innovative approach to calculating information among trusted parties without revealing anyone's confidential data. The chapter elucidates the methodology through easily understandable examples, such as, "How does my annual salary bonus compare with others?" and "Who is everyone going to vote for as leader?" In these scenarios, all parties are interested in the answers but do not want to disclose their actual bonuses or votes.

The method involves each participant generating random numbers and a calculated number that sums to their bonus (in the first example) or indicates their vote (in the second example). The ingenious aspect of this method is that it does not just aim to protect private data—it avoids sharing private data altogether! The authors note that multi-party computation is computationally intense, which means it will consume significant computer resources if the number of parties is large. Moreover, this approach does necessitate trust among the parties involved. Hence, the chapter incorporates the term "coopetition," which denotes trusted collaboration among traditional competitors to answer questions of mutual interest, such as "Am I paying the same for materials?" or "Does anyone else see suspicious cybersecurity activity on their networks?" The authors demonstrate the wide range of contexts in which this method can be useful, including auctions, voting, financial transactions, supply chains, fraud detection, genomic data sharing, and user authentication.

Dan Conway and Kiran Garimella are also the authors of Chapter 8, titled "Zero-knowledge proofs and privacy: A technical look at privacy." In this chapter, the authors explore another kind of privacy-enhancing algorithm known as the zero-knowledge proof (ZKP). They define ZKP as a method by which one party can prove to another that they possess a particular identity, item, or piece of knowledge without revealing the specifics of what that identity, item, or knowledge is. Like the previous chapter, the authors provide illustrative examples to help non-technical readers grasp the core concepts and the myriad applications, such as digital verification, secure messaging, voting, healthcare privacy, location privacy, and many others. Readers with a more technical background will appreciate the detailed discussions on specific ZKPs and their advantages and drawbacks, including Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (zkSNARK), Zero-Knowledge Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge (zkSTARK), commitment schemes, and homomorphic encryption.

All ZKPs strive for completeness and convincingness. They are sound, preventing dishonest actors from proving false statements, and they enhance privacy by ensuring that no private data is revealed. While multiparty computation requires a certain level of trust among the participants and becomes computationally intensive as it scales, some forms of zeroknowledge proofs are computationally efficient. These proofs eliminate the need for parties to trust one another, as they can instead place their trust in the proofs themselves.

#### *Domain-Specific Views of Privacy*

Chapters 9 through 12 dive into the exploration of privacy across diverse domains including architecture, healthcare, library sciences (archival), and supply chains. Each field offers a unique perspective and set of challenges concerning privacy. Architects bring the nuanced interplay between spaces and privacy; architectural scholars analyze how design can both enhance and inhibit the privacy of individuals within different environments. In the realm of healthcare, scholars grapple with the delicate balance between the laws and ethics of safeguarding individual information privacy while ensuring public welfare. Turning to library sciences, scholars in this field explore the ethical considerations and best practices for archiving and providing access to information, ensuring a balance between accessibility and confidentiality. Lastly, in the context of supply chains, the emphasis is on balancing the collection of data on employees and customers to enhance service delivery against the obligations to safeguard employee and customer privacy. Supply chain scholars investigate strategies and frameworks to ensure that the pursuit of operational efficiency does not compromise individual privacy rights. As the chapter descriptions will show, these chapters provide a multifaceted exploration of privacy across different disciplines, highlighting the commonalities, differences, and unique challenges each field faces in protecting individual privacy while meeting broader objectives,

In Chapter 9, titled "An Architect's View of Privacy," we, the editors, engaged in a thought-provoking interview with Marlon Blackwell, the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture and a Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. In addition to his academic role, he is the founder and principal of Marlon Blackwell Architects (MBA).

This conversation concentrated on the design philosophy of Blackwell, an esteemed American Institute of Architects (AIA) award recipient, focusing on his approach to privacy. Several themes pivotal to architectural privacy were explored. Initially, he considered the influence of culture on the interconnection between privacy and comfort, observing that individualistic societies tend to prioritize privacy more than their collective counterparts. Subsequently, he deliberated how primary, secondary, and tertiary spaces can cultivate private moments within public environments, illustrated by examples from MBA's portfolio such as an alcove in a church, a recessed wall in a school, and a solitary bench in a garden.

Moreover, Blackwell examined the dual role of light and sound as both disruptors and facilitators of privacy, illustrated through various projects by MBA. A central theme emerged that encapsulates Blackwell's design ethos: *ennobling the prosaic*. For him, architecture ennobles the prosaic by imbuing ordinary, everyday things with a sense of nobility and significance. This chapter features a vivid example of this philosophy in action, showcasing the transformation of a simple welding shed into a sacred space for the congregation of Saint Nicholas Eastern Orthodox Church.

Chapter 10 is titled "Healthcare Privacy in an Electronic Data Age" by D. Micah Hester. The principle of confidentiality of patient information in healthcare, which has been integral since the days of Hippocrates, signifies patients' right to control personal details of their life. This obligation, falling on healthcare professionals, is challenged by the fact that multiple entities and people, including diagnosticians, therapists, social workers, chaplains, medical transcriptionists, medical records clerks, and insurance providers access the information. With the advancement in technology, digitization of healthcare records, and the rise of telemedicine, maintaining confidentiality has become more challenging.

Hester discusses the complex interplay between patient privacy and the need for information sharing in healthcare, outlining the various ethical and legal challenges that arise. Medical confidentiality is not absolute; it is guided by laws such as the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which provide protective frameworks and conditions for permissible breaches. These breaches include reporting communicable diseases, cases indicating imminent harm, legal mandates like court orders, and certain safety and protection factors like suspicions of abuse or criminal activity.

This chapter concludes by arguing that healthcare organizations must foster a culture of confidentiality, even if absolute guarantees of privacy are not feasible. By promoting and adhering to such a culture, both institutions and healthcare providers can adopt practices that intentionally and proficiently mitigate the tangible risks to the privacy of patients, participants, and the broader community they serve.

Chapter 11, "Privacy Considerations in Archival Practice and Research," details the delicate dance among invested parties—donors, estates, the dead, archivists, administrators, the public—who negotiate the line between opening access to sensitive materials and shutting that access down. Following the lead of previous chapters, authors Katrina Windon and Joshua Youngblood clarify that there is no one approach to archival privacy in North America; nor is there a single international legal system. The fact that archival collections often represent a snapshot of history frozen in time, determining when or if to grant access to the public is a very dicey political game.

Windon and Youngblood give a series of fascinating cases where archival behavior went astray. They cite the infamous example of author Franz Kafka (d. 1924), who had requested that his executor burn his papers after his death. The executor of Kafka's estate, Max Bord, not only refused to honor Kafka's wishes, but he also went on to publish the writer's papers, which eventually found their way from Europe to the National Library of Israel, a journey underscoring the disconnect between an individual's personal preference and an institution's decision to open access based on the idea of the common good.

Archivists are also sensitive to the fact that authoritarian regimes have silenced the voices of at-risk populations. A disturbing case involves the Stasi Records Archive in Berlin, where 111,000 meters of documents contain a wealth of data retrieved through unrelenting, clandestine surveillance of citizens living in the Eastern Bloc. Given the manner of how they were collected, should these documents be open to the public?

Archival collections offer their users a "shot in time," a recording of historical events, such as political protests, in which the participants may or may not know that photographic and videographic technology has recorded their physical involvement in controversial movements, storing this visual information in archival repositories. Such "ephemeral" data, that is, information not taken with an eye toward recording stories in perpetuity but merely capturing them in a moment in time, presents yet another set of archival challenges in an age when law enforcement officials are combing archives searching for potential terrorists, insurrectionists, and anarchists.

What is fascinating here is the authors' focus on the person of the archivist, that impresario of access to sensitive material. What role in archival ethics does the archivist play? How much power does the archivist have to open and close access? In answering these questions, Windon and Youngblood draw on "best practices" available for archival access, noting that these guidelines are in no way consistent across the globe. They share the regulatory framework of their own institution, the University of Arkansas Special Collections, where the demands of a Land-Grant university necessitate unrestricted access but the realities of the history of this state often make impossible—or extremely thorny—that mandate.

Our final chapter, "Employee and customer information privacy concerns in supply chain management," is written by Marc Scott, Matthew Waller, and Brian Fugate. Retailers and their logistics partners, in their pursuit of enhanced competitiveness, harness sophisticated technologies that gather PII data, aiming to elevate customer service and bolster employee efficiency. However, employees and customers often raise privacy concerns.

While earlier chapters turned to customer and user privacy concerns, this chapter uniquely addresses the concerns of employees. Today, there's a growing trend of employees being watched through surveillance cameras and wearable sensors that track their health, emotions, and behaviors. Such monitoring has led many employees to believe that their privacy rights are being violated, making them vulnerable to potential mistreatment or bias. Striking the right balance between the organization's need for data—related to safety, efficiency, and compliance—and respecting employees' privacy is a complex issue.

This chapter highlights individual and cultural variances regarding employee data collection acceptance. The research summarized indicates varying perceptions based on personality traits and workplace type. For instance, individuals with higher neuroticism and extroversion levels expressed fewer privacy concerns than their counterparts with lower levels of these traits. Job nature also plays a role: manual laborers expressed greater surveillance concerns than those in non-manual roles. Furthermore, an organization's culture has a significant impact: employees in companies with a nurturing culture showed less resistance to monitoring compared to those in more bureaucratic settings.

The analysis also focuses on work environment privacy, defined as the ability of the employee to control sensory stimuli in the work environment. Organizations should craft workspaces that consider visual, acoustic, spatial, and even olfactory aspects. As highlighted by insights from both our supply chain and architectural experts: no one wants to work in an exposed, cramped, loud, and stinky environment.

Themes Across Chapters As a complex social construct, academics approach the study and conceptualization of privacy differently across disciplines. One unanticipated yet intriguing discovery was that we often share more common ground than initially presumed, even if we sometimes employed different terminology. Four recurring themes emerge across the chapters in this book:

The concept of *power* plays a pivotal role in determining which stakeholders ultimately hold sway. Given that governments typically wield more influence than organizations, and organizations hold more power than individuals, it becomes imperative to establish robust governmental regulations to safeguard individuals from potential infringements of their privacy by organizations. Overall, several authors mentioned complying with privacy laws as a minimum requirement for striking the balance between individual and group needs.

The authors discussing technology recommend various measures to bolster individual privacy. These measures include administrative, technical, and physical controls; data governance; embracing technology decentralization (Web 3.0); and employing algorithms like multi-party computation and zero-knowledge proofs. The authors of the domainspecific chapters interrogate privacy-enhancing solutions within distinct fields:

Across the diverse disciplines and perspectives presented, it is evident that privacy remains a dynamic, multifaceted realm necessitating nuanced understanding and approach. Clearly, privacy is a *moving target* when dropped into various contexts and spaces across the globe.

Ultimately, readers must determine how insights from various disciplines might influence their own research and teaching. In our concluding remarks, we each reflect on how learning from fellow scholars has influenced our work.

Mary, as we noted, is an information systems scholar who examines technical solutions for protecting personally identifiable information. This book broadened her perspective on privacy. Mary is less inclined to think that technologies alone will protect online privacy. The chapters on philosophy, cultural anthropology, and the domain-specific chapters illuminated the historic and contextual understanding needed to solve the "wicked" problem of online privacy, assuming of course, that privacy protection is deemed valuable by individuals within a specific context.

More specifically, one of Mary's current research and teaching interests are metaverses, which are three-dimensional, computer-generated virtual worlds one visits with an avatar. Marlon Blackwell's chapter on architectural privacy in physical spaces has had a profound effect on her thinking about designing virtual spaces. Most virtual worlds are designed to be expansive, open public spaces. So far in metaverses' development, the virtual worlds are rather barren unless a particular event like a fashion show or concert are announced, so she had never thought about spatial privacy. As metaverse adoption grows, she now thinks about designing virtual spaces where an avatar might have a private moment.

Mary's co-editor, Lynda, is a historian of early medieval era Europe (ca. 600–900) with a special focus on gender, visual culture, and religion (Coon, 2011). For Lynda, two things stand out here. First, an appreciation for the historical rhythms of the subject of privacy, from classicizing discourses of what belongs to the individual in contrast to the hegemony of the city-state and empire. The notion that the private existed as a reified, inalienable right simply did not appear in the West before the advent of the Industrial Age. Rather, premodern cultures in the West blurred the line between the private and the public in ways that seem either off-putting or even illogical to contemporary societies. The classical communal toilet—be it located in ancient Athens or Rome—represents a case in point as does the fact that Roman elites often conducted political business in their bedrooms. Marlon Blackwell notes the shared space of the familial bed in later medieval England surprises us moderns; monasteries too preferred corporate living—in the bedroom, in the toilet, in the garden, in the basilica—due to the dangers of sin which could penetrate monastic bodies seeking solitary spaces outside of the watchful gaze of the abbot.

The era of the Enlightenment and the Victorian era in Britain polarized the notion of the private vs. the public, bringing us to the second key point about this volume. What may be read as positive outcomes of philosophical discourse in the eighteenth century materialized into a darker legacy of surveillance and discipline designed to produce "good" citizens and to reform those falling into abyss of crime and immorality. What struck her most in the chapters devoted to modern-day privacy, technology, poverty, and labor is that certain themes are strangely haunted by the Victorian past. Nowhere is this haunting clearer than in how the control of bodies in supply chain workspaces eerily echoes the disciplinary techniques of the Victorian prison and factory, where docile bodies endured relentless surveillance, embodied by the all-seeing eye of the Panopticon, the ultimate shadowing system designed to make workers or inmates feel as if they were being watched at every moment even if they were not.

Perfected by Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham (d. 1832), the Panopticon took the physical presence of the jailor or factory floormanager and inscribed it onto the impersonal architecture of prison and industrial workspace. Whereas in the medieval monastery, monks went through their daily paces conscious of the watchful gaze of the omnipotent Deity, Victorian laborers and inmates operated under a regiment in which they could be observed at any moment by those in control of their lives, but they could not see their controller, whose presence was obfuscated behind a system of blinds and spotlights emanating from the warden's box. The prisoner and the factory laborer were to become the masters of their own productive habits due to the fear of allencompassing, punitive supervision. In Bentham and other nineteenthcentury reformers' view the endgame was self-evident: the moral reform of those now had lapsed and the improved efficiency of those toiling under dire circumstances in the Victorian workhouse. These reforms then, theoretically speaking, led to an overall improvement of the common good and its overall happiness.

Taking the philosophical paradigm of the Panopticon on a road trip to the modern workplace of truck or supply chain warehouse, it is possible to detect strains of Utilitarian philosophy in the present era. Cameras installed inside of truck cabs monitor the driving behaviors of truckers, Smartwatches worn on employee wrists to gage the efficiency of their movements, and ultrasonic bracelets monitoring laborers' engagement high-tech equipment prove that we have entered a new era of the Panopticon, where the coercive power of jailor and faculty floor-supervisor no longer merely transfers to the architecture of the prison or factory. Now that surveillance-regime is miniaturized. It can be worn, carried, or installed in proximity to its user.

As the chapters in this book have argued, the technological Panopticon of the contemporary world infringes on privacy and private space, often under the guise of the public good and capitalist efficiency, in ways that demand a second volume on *Human Privacy* devoted to this subject alone.

### References

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### Foundations of Human Privacy

## Exploring Privacy from a Philosophical Perspective: Conceptual and Normative Dimensions

*Sharon Mason*

#### *Extended Abstract*

Philosophical approaches to privacy focus on clarifying its many dimensions, providing a conceptual foundation for thinking about privacy in deep and fruitful ways. The modern concept of privacy developed as new technologies, such as print media and photography, made new types of exploitation possible. In response to the possibility of these new harms, legal and philosophical theorists began to develop analyses of privacy, including the concept of privacy rights and justifications for protecting privacy. Some philosophers have noted that there is no single concept of privacy. Instead, privacy can refer to a variety of different things, such

S. Mason (B)

University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, USA e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2024

M. C. Lacity and L. Coon (eds.), *Human Privacy in Virtual and Physical Worlds*, Technology, Work and Globalization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51063-2\_2

as access to information; ownership or control of information, physical spaces, or particular objects; a private domain contrasted with the "public" domain; or appropriateness in what may be viewed by others. This chapter explores some of these concepts of privacy, examining how pluralism about the many different dimensions of privacy reflects ongoing technological change.

Philosophical inquiry also explores the normative and ethical dimensions of privacy, including questions about why privacy is valuable and how it is related to other values. Some of these areas of focus include the relation between privacy and security, privacy and ownership, privacy and the conditions for democratic society, privacy as a means of commodifying the self, and the role of privacy in the possibility of intimacy with others. Another area of focus involves understanding how privacy is related to fundamental moral principles, such as preventing harm, preserving individual freedom, protecting human rights, and promoting justice. Overall, normative inquiry aims to develop a moral framework for when and why privacy should be protected, and when and why it should not.

#### Introduction

The philosophical study of privacy focuses on its conceptual and normative dimensions. One key area of analysis involves clarifying the many concepts of privacy that are in use, focusing on evaluating definitions and key distinctions. These analyses are partly aimed at the clarification of various notions of privacy, but they are also often targeted at the development of new insights into privacy. The goal is to develop a coherent, rationally supported conceptual framework for thinking and talking about privacy.

A second key area of philosophical analysis deals with normative questions. Normative questions ask what ought or should be, in contrast to descriptive questions, which focus on identifying how things are. The normative study of privacy considers questions about the value of privacy and the moral dimensions of privacy, including the examination of privacy rights. Some examples of normative questions about privacy include: What sorts of privacy should be protected, and why? When is it morally acceptable to violate someone's privacy, and for what reasons? Is a particular privacy protection good or bad, and why? What are our current goals and values, and how should we change current privacy laws, attitudes, and practices to align better with those goals and values?

As is perhaps already apparent, the conceptual and normative dimensions of philosophical inquiry are intertwined. There is a normative dimension to conceptual inquiry, for in addition to its clarificatory aims, conceptual inquiry generally has a prescriptive aspect. Some ways of thinking about privacy may be better than others, perhaps because they are more coherent, shed light on important adjacent concepts, or in some other way serve as more useful conceptual tools for thinking about privacy. So, too, our concepts of privacy influence normative inquiry, providing the language of thought with which values and ethics are expressed and explored.

The first section of this chapter focuses on conceptual dimensions of privacy, centering on the development of the concept of privacy in Anglo-American legal and philosophical traditions. The chapter then addresses the question of why numerous philosophers assert that there is no single concept of privacy, arguing that there is an expected pluralism in a concept that has evolved largely in response to extensive technological innovation. The second section explores some normative questions about privacy, concentrating on why privacy is valuable, if indeed it is, as well as on how privacy interacts with other values. Some of these other values are widely recognized, such as the interplay between privacy and security, or privacy and ownership. Some of them are more subtle, such as the role of privacy in enabling democratic society, the construction of the self, and our management of relationships with others.

#### Concepts of Privacy

What is privacy? What makes something in the domain of the private, instead of the public? When one values privacy, what is it that one cares about? These are questions about the concept of privacy, insofar as they explore what privacy is and is not, as well as how it is related to other concepts. The aim of this section is to explore the concept of privacy, starting by identifying some common notions of privacy in current use. This section also traces some older philosophical analyses of privacy, considering why a single definition of privacy has been elusive and arguing that pluralism in various concepts of privacy is not a problem to eliminate, but rather a feature of a concept whose development has been deeply intertwined with changing technologies and social interests.

In response to the question, "What is privacy?" many philosophers have noted that the term "privacy" is used in a variety of contexts, and no single definition of privacy applies to *all* the uses to which the term is put in our ordinary conversations about privacy. Also, it is not always clear how varying notions of privacy relate to one another. For example, information privacy often emphasizes the idea of *control over access to information*. In a classic paper, Alan Westin (1967) describes privacy as "the ability to determine for ourselves when, how, and to what extent information about us is communicated to others" (cited in DeCew, 2018). Control over access to information is often viewed as essential to managing risk and mitigating harm, especially in relation to decisionmaking processes (Anglim et al., 2015). For example, medical information (see Hester chapter in this volume) informs decisions about life insurance and health care premiums, and credit records can affect employment decisions. Information is powerful, and privacy protections are often aimed at keeping information from harming people.

Privacy can also mean *control over access* to both physical spaces and to experiences. Privacy as control over access often involves notions of *ownership* more generally and frequently appeals to notions of personal property and individual rights. A beach is private when access is limited, perhaps to the owner or to a private resort. A person's private residence may not be entered by others without permission: police officers must obtain warrants; trespassers may be prosecuted. Ownership rights apply regardless of any additional harm that might result from unsanctioned access. If someone accesses private information without permission, one might object that they have violated a person's privacy rights, even if no further damage resulted. It is also possible to have control over access to experiences. For example, a person's inner thoughts and feelings are private in the sense that they occur only to one's own conscious experience. It is a stretch to think of inner experience as one's personal property, yet much of a person's inner life is private unless and until that person decides to share it.

Another notion of privacy references a *domain*, where the "private" domain may be contrasted with the "public" domain. Things in the public domain are open to use by anyone, while things in the private domain are restricted to the concern of particular individuals. Privacy is often cited in arguments for reproductive rights and gender-related medical care, which view medical treatment as private in the sense that it should be exempt from government interference. Calling a person's property, affairs, and beliefs "private" can indicate that they are *outside the scope of relevance*. Other examples include religious beliefs, which are considered a private matter in many contexts, and thus outside the purview of the things that the state should be concerned with in its oversight of the activities of its citizens. So too, some types of private beliefs are protected from being relevant in hiring decisions, college applications, loan applications, and more.

Privacy also sometimes refers to *what is appropriate for the viewing of others*, especially in relation to cultural norms of politeness, but also as it relates to the experience of being unobserved. One example comes from Annabelle Lever (2012), who explores privacy as it relates to "interests in anonymity, seclusion, confidentiality, and solitude" rather than privacy as it relates to ownership or a private domain. Privacy can designate a category in which unseemly things are hidden, things often having to do with bodily care. Children are taught privacy and modesty in order to know which sorts of behaviors are appropriate in front of others and which are not. For example, trimming one's toenails should be done in private, not because it is important to limit access to one's toenails or protect ownership rights to one's toenails, but rather because cultural manners dictate keeping certain grooming activities to oneself.

In a now-classic article on privacy, Judith Jarvis Thomson (1975) remarks that "The most striking thing about the right to privacy is that nobody seems to have any very clear idea what it is." She was not claiming that there are no definitions of privacy, but rather that there are many different uses of privacy, with no single definition that fits all the possible uses. This view has persisted, as Alastair Macleod (2018) recently argued that "The uses to which the notion of privacy is put in contexts of different sorts are so diverse that no unifying definition is available." Despite the resignation that is apparent in both Thomson's and Macleod's observations, the lack of cohesiveness among the various concepts of privacy is itself interesting and worthy of further exploration. It also reveals something important about the way that the concept of privacy has developed, as well as how philosophical work on privacy proceeds. Exploring both those claims is the focus of the remainder of this section.

The main idea is that among the many changes that are driven by technological innovation, one fluctuation involves the concepts and theory underpinning our legal and moral thinking. The philosophical analysis of privacy is a primary means by which it is possible to, as Herman Cappelen (2018) puts it, actively participate in "the project of assessing and developing improvements of our representational devices," which in this case are our representational devices for thinking about privacy.

Concepts are a primary tool through which human beings think about the world. They are, as Cappelen observes, a core representational device that enables thought about external reality, from mundane objects such as tables and chairs to complex, abstract ideas such as privacy. These concepts form the basis for understanding various parts of our experience, including what we can notice, describe, and communicate to others. Philosophers have many goals, including lofty aims such as the pursuit of truth, wisdom, and understanding, or perhaps more modestly, the aim to discover what it is reasonable to believe. But one thing that many philosophers also do is analyze and engineer concepts, which is—as the name suggests—the "project of designing, evaluating, and implementing concepts" (Chalmers, 2020). Concepts develop and change according to the various needs and interests of the people who use them to understand and describe various aspects of their world.

Consider a brief historical sketch of the development of the concept of privacy in philosophical use. Go far enough back in history, and for many philosophers the problem of how to live well together was much more pressing than any problems that concerned privacy. For instance, Plato's discussion of privacy is quite sparse. He explores the consequences of invisibility on moral behavior in a famous thought experiment about the Ring of Gyges in Book 2 of *The Republic* (Cooper, 1997). There, he focuses on the effects of observation and the consequences, including social approval, of acting justly. Socrates argues that few, if any, would act justly if there were no consequences for injustice, but that a truly just person's behavior would be unaffected by invisibility because their justice would be motivated by a genuine concern for the good. Yet again, Plato's concern was not about privacy as a right or as a good that contributes to a person's well-being. His focus was on illuminating the demanding standards that are met by a truly just person and showing the relation between justice and a happy life.

Aristotle distinguished between the *polis*, or city, and the *oikos*, or home/domestic spheres, as two distinctive domains with distinct virtues, or excellences. He viewed excellence in public life as requiring a different set of virtues than excellence in private life (Embler, 2015b; Lord, 2013). Aristotle's account is also an example of a deeply gendered division in conceptualizing privacy, where men belonged in the public sphere,

women in the private, especially those in the upper-classes. Even so, his theorizing about privacy is minimal. His attention was not focused on developing a notion of the *private*, but on developing a robust notion of the *public*, including attention to the possibility of citizenship, the obligations we have toward others, and the structure of a just society.

Moving forward over a millennium, the notion of privacy receives limited attention from Enlightenment philosophers, even those particularly interested in social, political, economic, and psychological affairs. David Hume, for example, uses the term "privacy" to mark a distinction between what concerns the goals or good of all members of society (public interests) versus what concerns the goals or good of a particular person (private interests). Hume's use of the word "private" is essentially equivalent to what benefits the individual, and his usage is consistent across various references to private interest, private education, and private benevolence. (See Hume's *A Treatise of Human Nature* especially Book 3; *Enquiry Concerning Morals*, Section 5 for examples.) In Hume's work, the notion of privacy marks the distinction between a public domain and a private domain, but privacy is still not conceptualized as a robust individual right.

To find a more contemporary notion of privacy, we must look to a more recent source. In a well-known essay by Louis Brandeis and Samuel Warren titled "The Right to Privacy" (1890), Brandeis and Warren identified a need to develop legal protections based on what they called a "right to be let alone," calling this "the next step which must be taken for the protection of the person." Interestingly, they cite a variety of technological advancements as the impetus for the development of both the notion of a right to privacy and its subsequent legal protection. While by this point print media had existed for centuries, late nineteenthcentury society saw an increase in the publication of gossip columns and pamphlets. As their production and dissemination increased, so too did the damage to the reputations of their unfortunate subjects. A second problem was the relatively new capability of photography to capture images, as well as "any other modern device for recording or reproducing scenes or sounds." These new technologies created the possibility for new types of harm.

Warren and Brandeis argued that there was a need for the development of legal protections for privacy in light of new technological advancement that made these new harms possible. Their argument used protections for personal property as a model. However, they articulated the value of privacy as extending beyond ownership and property rights, maintaining that privacy itself was a good associated with free flourishing as a human person: "Urging that they were not attempting to protect the items produced, or intellectual property, but rather the peace of mind attained with such protection, they said the right to privacy was based on a principle of 'inviolate personality' which was part of a general right of immunity of the person, 'the right to one's personality'" (DeCew, 2018; citing Warren & Brandeis, 1890). Their arguments began a discussion in US law, political theory, and ethics about the value of privacy protections, laying the groundwork for thinking about privacy as a fundamental human right and as essential to human flourishing. (For a more detailed summary of this history, see Anglim et al., 2015.)

This brief overview suggests a way to think about the pluralism that many philosophers have encountered in the various concepts of privacy that are in use. The standard in philosophical conceptual analysis has for some time been to articulate a single definition of a concept that captures what is distinctive about the thing one is trying to define. These definitions give clarity about the concept and provide a basis for sorting out borderline cases. Some concepts do not, however, have that unity. Privacy seems instead to have several interrelated meanings, without it being possible to identify a single core concept that applies in all cases. Lever (2012) suggests that the various overlapping concepts of privacy may be due to the fact that privacy is intertwined with other notions whose edges overlap with privacy: "The main reason why it is hard to define privacy--the absence of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions which would enable us to identify privacy and to distinguish it from allied concepts--suggests that the fuzziness of our concepts of liberty, equality and rights may, themselves, explain why the boundaries of privacy are hard to fix." Some concepts have fuzzy edges, which means they overlap with closely related concepts to the point that there is not a sharp distinction between where one concept ends another begins.

Lever's analysis may be correct, but it is not complete, for there is more to the story of why there seems to be an ineliminable pluralism in the concept of privacy. It seems likely that privacy is a concept that has a structure referred to by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) as a *family resemblance concept*. When careful analysis does not reveal a core notion, Wittgenstein recommends that "We should, instead, travel with the word's uses through 'a complicated network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing'" (*PI* 66, cited in Biletzki & Matar, 2023). The philosophical work of understanding privacy involves precisely this sort of traveling through the various uses of privacy that have been developed as people create and tweak conceptual tools for thinking and talking about their experiences.

In the late nineteenth century, Warren and Brandeis were arguing for a new extension of the law, but they were also developing a new concept of privacy rights that had not yet existed in quite that form. Perhaps there are various concepts of privacy because the idea of privacy has been in constant reconsideration, revision, and expansion. As the world changes, so does the need for ongoing innovation in our laws and moral principles, but also in our concepts. The need to develop privacy law spurred the development of philosophical accounts of privacy aimed at gaining a better understanding of privacy's value, the specific ways in which privacy was under threat, the harms that might result from failing to protect privacy, and a clearer articulation of what was to be gained by developing a robust theory of privacy rights. In particular, technological and social change drive this development. It seems all but certain that the future will continue to see innovations that make new kinds of exploitation possible, and that our current understanding of privacy will need to continue to develop in response.

While acknowledging the need for flexibility in our thinking about privacy, we can also provisionally define different types of privacy as they are relevant to specific contexts. An operational definition need not apply to *all* possible contexts in which privacy is relevant. Rather, those who work on issues related to privacy ought to specify what is relevant to the inquiry at hand, keeping in mind the possible need for future revision. Working to illuminate different conceptions of privacy and show their significance can help clarify and refine our thinking, as well as suggest new ways of thinking about privacy in the future.

#### Normative Dimensions of Privacy

In addition to exploring the conceptual dimensions of privacy, philosophers also try to answer normative questions about privacy. Normative questions ask not what is, but what should or ought to be. Ethics is normative in the sense that ethical principles aim to guide action, moving beyond the way things actually are to examine how people should act, given a broader context of values and moral principles. Part of the normative study of privacy involves understanding the value of privacy, especially why privacy is valuable and how it interacts with other values. For instance, does privacy have intrinsic value which should be protected for its own sake? Or is the value of privacy instrumental, derived from its relation to other goods that it makes possible? The normative study of privacy also involves developing various moral arguments for when and why privacy should be protected, given various goals such as promoting justice, protecting privacy rights, and contributing to a flourishing life. Finally, the normative study of privacy includes feminist analyses of privacy, which focus on exploring how privacy is entangled with various forms of gender discrimination and how privacy relates to efforts to promote justice, equality, and human dignity (e.g., Allen, 2011; DeCew, 2015; Mackinnon, 1989; Williams, 1991).

Notably, the normative study of privacy should not be thought of as isolated from descriptive inquiry, which focuses on inquiry about what is the case. In the same way that the concept of privacy has developed in response to social and technological change, new ethical challenges arise as changes in technology create new ways of collecting and sharing information, thus creating new possibilities for harm. As Catherine Wilson (2019) puts it, "…societies evolve new forms of organisation and new technologies. Morality has to play catch-up as clever humans discover new ways to deceive, use, coerce and rob one another that were not previously available…. New moral norms have to be worked out through discussion and debate by the public, including philosophers and journalists, and new forms of conscience instilled by educators. These norms, too, are subject to revision in the light of changing circumstances." Responding to technological change requires careful attention to the many ways in which privacy may be threatened, as a matter of clear description of the current circumstances and challenges to privacy. These descriptions motivate extending normative analyses to new contexts, identifying where established moral values apply, and identifying when a new development prompts revision in our moral ideals.

Warren and Brandeis could scarcely have imagined all the ways in which it is now possible to collect and use information in harmful ways. There is an ongoing need to extend the application of normative standards in response to new technologies in order to manage technological innovation in a way that coheres with other values such as the protection of individual rights, the prevention of harm, and the promotion of security. This section explores some of these areas of ongoing normative inquiry about privacy.

#### *The Value of Privacy*

A foundational distinction in value theory distinguishes between value that is intrinsic vs. value that is instrumental. *Intrinsic value* is value that is internal to a thing. If privacy has intrinsic value, then privacy has value in and of itself, regardless of its relation to other goods. Those who take privacy to have intrinsic value sometimes view privacy as a basic human right or as a fundamental good, worth protecting and preserving in its own right. Many who view privacy as an intrinsic good also claim that there is something distinctive about privacy, arguing that the value of privacy cannot be fully reduced to the value of something else, such as property ownership or personal security.

If privacy has *instrumental value*, then its value is derived from the contribution it makes to some other valuable end. Instrumental value is derivative, meaning that the value of a thing comes from its usefulness as a tool, or instrument, for achieving something else. This view is sometimes described as a type of *reductionism*, the claim that the value of privacy can be fully explained by describing the other valuable ends to which privacy contributes. Also, the value of privacy then depends on whether privacy does, in fact, help achieve those goals, rather than existing as something to be pursued for its own sake.

These types of values are not mutually exclusive. Something might have both intrinsic and instrumental value, if it is both valuable for its own sake, and valuable insofar as it leads to other, desirable ends. Thus, it is possible that privacy has intrinsic value as a basic human good *and*  that privacy also has instrumental value because it supports other goods, such as preserving personal security and enabling democratic society. In addition, although accounts differ about the sorts of goods that privacy enables and their relative importance, there is general agreement about the fact that privacy has instrumental value.

In contrast, there is disagreement about whether privacy has intrinsic value. One significant challenge comes from the fact that there is cultural variation in viewpoints about the importance of privacy. If something has intrinsic value, there is a sense in which its value is self-evident. After all, one cannot show that something has intrinsic value by appealing to its importance in achieving some other valuable end. That would show that the thing has instrumental value, not intrinsic value. Simply put, it does not seem that the value of privacy is self-evident. Rather, it appears to be culturally specific. Although some scholars argue that there are some cross-cultural similarities in privacy protections (Embler, 2015a), it is far from obvious that privacy is universally recognized as having intrinsic value (see Hawkins chapter in this volume).

Privacy need not be intrinsically valuable to be instrumentally valuable, however. The question about intrinsic vs. instrumental value focuses on how to best understand why we value privacy, not whether privacy is valuable at all. Even if there is nothing distinctive about privacy that makes it valuable for its own sake, privacy might still be important and worthy of protection. An instrumental value can still be "something in the enjoyment of which all human beings have a defensible personal stake" (Macleod, 2018). Exploring privacy as an instrumental good has been quite interesting and fruitful, for it involves examining the ways in which privacy is related to other values. Clarity about the values that support the protection of privacy is essential for understanding why privacy should be protected. These analyses can also provide a basis for evaluating particular privacy protections.

Even so, there is no guarantee that an account of the value of privacy will be simple or straightforward. On the contrary, there are layers of complexity and overlapping values in our lives. Sometimes our values mutually support one another, but sometimes they are in tension with each other. Our values come into conflict with the values of others, and we cannot assume that we are even aware of all the nuanced layering of our motivational structures (Nguyen, 2022). Thus, even if there is no single answer to the question of why privacy is important to us (Rachels, 1975), we might find instead a constellation of values that privacy supports.

Furthermore, we have already seen that the development of the idea of privacy as a fundamental right in the Western philosophical and legal tradition was a relative latecomer to the discussion of natural rights that began several centuries before. The idea of natural human rights is an idea with a particular historical development. It is also an idea that has had significant political, moral, and legal influence, providing guidance for how people should treat one another and what we can reasonably expect from our political system. As such, questions about whether privacy has intrinsic value might be more useful if transformed into questions such as "Are there good reasons to include privacy as one of the things that we choose to treat as a fundamental value?" and "What happens if morally and legally we extend to privacy the status of a fundamental right?"

The remainder of this chapter explores some of the constellation of values that philosophers have identified as being related to privacy. Some of these are values that privacy promotes and supports, while others are in tension with protecting privacy. This discussion is not exhaustive, but will emphasize particular areas of recent interest: (1) privacy and security, (2) privacy and transparency, (3) privacy and democratic society, (4) privacy rights, (5) privacy and the self, and (6) privacy and commodification.

#### *Privacy and Security*

Privacy has a close relationship to security. Privacy supports certain types of security, thereby protecting against harms such as identity theft and voyeurism. We limit access to some personal information, such as social security numbers or credit card numbers, to protect people from identity theft. Facial recognition software surveys thousands of faces at airports, an invasion of privacy that some say will make air travel more secure (Gentilo & Santana, 2023). Privacy protections can also prevent public embarrassment that leaves a person feeling exposed.

At the same time, privacy can enable harm when it is used as a shelter to hide harmful behavior. As DeCew explains, "privacy appears to be something we value to provide a sphere within which we can be free from interference by others, and yet it also appears to function negatively, as the cloak under which one can hide domination, degradation, or physical harm to women and others" (2018). Many feminist scholars have documented various ways in which appealing to the value of privacy has provided legal protection for various types of gendered violence (Allen, 2011).

The notion of privacy also designates some aspects of life as being outside governmental control, exempt from certain kinds of interference in domestic affairs. As a result, protections for privacy of personal dwellings and family relationships have historically been a source of support and protection for abusers. Privacy protects domestic life from unauthorized observation, but also plays a role in enabling domestic abuse (Allen, 2011). In fact, some feminist authors have argued that the private/public distinction is itself problematic, suggesting a rethinking of the distinction between public and private domains (for example, see Landes, 1998).

#### *Privacy and Transparency*

Transparency provides a balance to privacy, as it deals with the legitimate disclosure of certain types of information in certain contexts. Transparency is a tool against the misuse of privacy to hide problematic behavior, and it is often cited in cases where things such as reasoning, justification, bureaucratic processes, and decision-making should be available for review to interested parties or to the general public. For example, when decisions affect others, transparency about decisionmaking processes gives some assurance of fair treatment in contexts such as the allocation of funds, selection of job candidates, or calculating a student's grades. Transparency promotes trust.

At the same time, transparency can be a double-edged sword. In a recent paper, C. Thi Nguyen (2022) argues that transparency can be deeply opposed to trust, especially when expertise is involved. The demands of public transparency are often aimed at reducing corruption. However, transparency can also require that experts "act within the range of public understanding." Nguyen articulates a number of problems that can result from this requirement, including the pressure to articulate reasons in non-expert language which distorts the description of the actual reasoning process, the preference for metrics of evaluation that are simple and easy to understand over those that may be more accurate or that reflect a plurality of values, and the erosion of the implicit knowledge that is characteristic of expertise. Nguyen views the tension between public transparency and expertise as ineliminable: "Transparency works to eliminate the non-explicit and the private. That is where corruption and bias live -- but also sensitivity, expertise, and intimacy. There is no getting around this tension" (Nguyen, 2022). Sometimes this cost will be worth paying, but it is good to know what exactly one is trading when pursuing transparency, especially when experts are expected to provide justification that is accessible to the general public.

#### *Privacy and Democratic Society*

Many discussions of privacy assume some version of *liberalism*, a theory that takes the preservation of individual freedom and individual rights as fundamental in political and social theorizing (Bell, 2014). The term "liberal" traces its origins back to "liber," a Latin adjective that means "free." It is also the word from which the English term "liberty" is derived.

Roughly, a liberalist perspective on privacy emphasizes the protection of privacy insofar as it promotes and protects individual liberties, while opposing privacy laws that interfere with individual liberty. Privacy is often taken to be essential in contributing to "the right to the enjoyment of opportunities for the living of a satisfying and fulfilling life" (Macleod, 2018).

Recently, Annabelle Lever (2012, 2015a, 2015b) has also developed a democratic justification for the protection of privacy, emphasizing the importance of some forms of privacy for democratic society. As she explains:

The point of protecting privacy from a democratic perspective is not that privacy is some preeminent individual good because of its connection to human dignity, intimate and familial relationships or to property ownership—as it would be from liberal perspectives. Privacy may or may not be justified on these grounds. The point, rather, is that protection for anonymity, confidentiality, seclusion, and intimacy—to name a few characteristics of privacy—helps to foster the freedom and equality necessary for democratic politics by structuring and limiting competition for power in ways that enable people to see and treat each other as equal despite incompatible beliefs, interests, and identities.

Lever argues that some forms of privacy are required for democratic governments to function. On the one hand, voter privacy allows individuals to vote according to their conscience, without fear of repercussions. Without voter privacy, things such as voter intimidation or retaliation can exert significant sway over voters, thereby threatening democratic elections. On the other hand, making legislative voting records of elected officials public contributes to their accountability as representatives of their constituents.

The distinction between Lever's democratic defense of privacy and justifications for privacy rooted in liberalism is not entirely clear. To the extent that the justification for democratic government is based on liberal ideals such as the value of self-governance, the role of consent in legitimating governmental authority, and the protection of unalienable rights, a democratic justification for protecting privacy might itself rely on liberal arguments that give support for valuing democratic governance. Even so, Lever's analysis provides a helpful detail of many of the specific ways in which democracy and privacy are intertwined.

#### *Privacy Rights*

While we have already discussed the development of the concept of privacy as a fundamental right, the notion of privacy rights is also important in normative explorations of privacy. Rights come with both entitlements and obligations. For instance, if a person has a right to privacy, then they are entitled to privacy of some sort, and others are obligated not to violate their privacy. Legal privacy rights create entitlements and obligations that are codified and protected by law, as are the legal consequences of being caught violating these rights. Fundamental or natural rights are entitlements and obligations that apply to all human beings and there is a moral obligation to protect them. Ideally, a legal system will recognize and protect fundamental human rights, although the existence of those rights does not rely on such recognition or protection. An appeal to fundamental human rights can provide arguments for changing the law to bring it into alignment with moral imperatives.

A robust notion of privacy as a fundamental human right plays another important role in moral thinking about privacy. Privacy protections that focus on preventing possible harm, such as those discussed in the section on privacy and security, treat privacy as instrumental to other goals, such as security or general well-being. These approaches are *consequentialist*, in the sense that they emphasize the consequences of protecting or not protecting privacy. Privacy should be protected when its protection leads to a good outcome; privacy should not be protected when its protection leads to a bad outcome. If privacy is a fundamental human right, however, then it should be protected independently of any further harm that might result.

It is sometimes said that surveillance is not a problem if one has nothing to hide, or that privacy is unnecessary in the absence of personal guilt. If privacy is a fundamental right, then it is important to protect privacy for its own sake, even if one has nothing to hide. Perhaps privacy is important not just because of its role in avoiding negative consequences such as financial loss or public embarrassment, but perhaps it is also important because it is somehow fundamental to human dignity. The next section explores this possibility, considering how privacy might occupy a special role in the development and ongoing construction of the self, as well as in our ability to develop intimacy with others.

#### *Privacy and the Self*

In a now-classic essay, Jeffrey Reiman (1976) emphasizes the role of privacy in fully developed personhood, arguing that privacy is "a social ritual by means of which an individual's moral title to his existence is conferred." Reiman's analysis places privacy among the basic rights and obligations that are essential to recognizing and interacting with someone as a co-person, rather than as an object or as a less autonomous being. According to this view, there are certain fundamental abilities and expectations that are morally basic to full personhood. Reiman claims that the right to privacy "is the right to the existence of a social practice which makes it possible for me to think of this existence as mine. This means that it is the right to conditions necessary for me to think of myself as the kind of entity for whom it would be meaningful and important to claim personal and property rights." Viewing oneself as entitled to certain kinds of privacy requires viewing oneself as a subject capable of making decisions about one's own experiences and how those experiences are shared with others. Privacy is an expression of autonomy, and the absence of any control over one's own privacy threatens the conception of oneself as an individual self at all.

Furthermore, just as the ability to conceptualize certain aspects of experience as one's own is an expression of autonomy, so too is the ability to decide which aspects of one's experience one wishes to share with others or to hide from others. The ability to control privacy is central to the cultivation of intimacy insofar as intimacy is fostered in part by the willing disclosure of private details about oneself. Close friends and family often have access to various aspects of each other's lives that indicate varying levels of intimacy in those relationships, and the decision to share personal details with someone is an important way of building trust. Sometimes trust also motivates the protection of privacy. Preserving the privacy of a loved one can be an expression of care and respect, such as the respect shown by allowing a person to disclose personal details if and when they wish. A loss of privacy can undermine a person's ability to regulate their own interactions with others, and a sustained inability to have any say in what remains private in one's own life signals that one's life is not, in fact, much of one's own. It is for this reason that the loss of control over one's own privacy can be experienced as a significant personal violation, as evidenced by the experience of exposure and helplessness that sometimes results from invasions of privacy.

Reiman's analysis has also played an important role in many analyses of privacy. For instance, Lever (2012) considers a sense of privacy that is tied to our sense of ourselves as moral agents. Her argument is worth quoting at length:

Just as our willingness to grant privacy to others can reflect respect and trust—and be valued and desired for that reason—our willingness to act anonymously, confidentially, or discreetly can reflect a mature and considered decision to avoid burdening others with our problems, or to avoid forcing them to confront features of the world with which they may be unwilling or unable to cope…This is partly because our interests in privacy are not purely instrumental but seem sometimes to be ways of affirming, even constituting, ourselves as people to be trusted, respected, and deserving of liberty, equality, and happiness. Indeed, while privacy can be necessary to our security and be desired for that reason, people are sometimes willing to risk their lives and health in order to maintain anonymity, seclusion, and confidentiality.

By recognizing privacy as a way of "affirming, and even constituting, ourselves," Lever is highlighting the relevance of privacy to the development and management of certain types of character. Privacy might be preserved out of respect for another person, but it also might be motivated by the desire to be a trustworthy, discreet, and reliable person. Being motivated by genuine respect for others and being motivated by the desire to develop one's own character in certain ways are often mutually reinforcing goals.

Similarly, Iris Marion Young (2004) notes that " An important aspect of the value of privacy is the ability to have a dwelling space of one's own…in which one lives among the things that help support the narrative of one's life." Young's observation is particularly relevant for views about personal identity that suggest that persons are narrative selves, authors of their own stories, and interpreters of experiences and their significance (Rea, 2022). Without a (literal or metaphorical) place of one's own, it is difficult to play a significant role in determining the trajectory and meaning of one's own life.

Anita Allen (2011) likewise emphasizes the importance of privacy to the self, although her view goes further than Reiman's insofar as she argues that some types of privacy are so fundamental to the self that a person should not be permitted to give away privacy rights in certain contexts, even if they willingly consent to do so. One concern is aimed at preserving "the experience of privacy and the habits of respect for privacy it constitutes." Another concern is that giving away some privacy rights results in harms that are worse than the paternalism she is suggesting. Her suggestions are tentative but striking in a context where privacy protection is often intertwined with the value of personal autonomy. As she puts it, "If people are completely morally and legally free to pick and choose the privacy they will experience, such as deferential civility, appropriateness and limited data flow, they are potentially deprived of highly valued states that promote their vital interests, and those of fellow human beings with whom they associate. We need to restrain choice—if not by law, then somehow" (2011). If she is correct, then some privacy rights are inviolable, resistant even to a person's own desire to relinquish them.

#### *Privacy and Commodification*

A final area of focus concerns the ways in which privacy has been increasingly commodified. Privacy can be traded for access to goods and services, some of which are essential to participating in the modern world. We let our internet browsers track our search history in exchange for access to the internet. Our phones can now broadcast our location at any given moment, enabling friends to find each other quickly and targeted messages to be sent when close to a restaurant or event. Sometimes we are informed about the surveillance of our lives, but often the language with which we indicate consent is buried in the fine print and it is easier to simply click "I Agree" than to read through all the details. Anglim et al. (2015) refer to this as a paradox of privacy: "On the one hand, we benefit from the easy exchange of personal information through digital communications. On the other, we give up some degree of control over what happens to that information. Is that an appropriate trade off? Is it worth it?"

A further complication is that it is not always apparent what, exactly, is being traded. Privacy that can be bought and sold is another way of turning ourselves into commodities, along with our time, attention, and labor. Privacy can be viewed as a type of capital which can be used to purchase goods and services. For instance, "free" access to social media is in fact "purchased" in part by the disclosure of information that can be turned into a profit by selling it to advertisers.

Patricia Williams (1991) highlights this dimension of privacy, considering "the degree to which it might be that public and private are economic notions, i.e., that the right to privacy might be a function of wealth." As with other forms of capital, the amount of control one has over privacy now often depends on the money one is able to spend. A particularly high-profile example of the ability to buy privacy occurred in 2013 when Mark Zuckerberg famously purchased four homes that surrounded his own home in Palo Alto, CA. The purchases were reportedly in response to the fact that "a developer wanted to purchase one of his neighbor's homes and use the fact that Zuckerberg lived close by as a marketing tactic" (Shontell, 2013). Zuckerberg's privacy had a price tag of around \$30 million. Perhaps it is for good reason that Williams refers to privacy as a "bargained freedom."

The increased commodification of privacy raises concerns about equal access to privacy, as social and economic disparities result in significant disparities in privacy protections. When privacy is the commodity being bought and sold, there is concern about a significant incongruity between those who have the resources to protect their privacy and those who do not. This disparity exists in terms of both wealth and education, as both provide increased access to the means for protecting one's own privacy.

#### Looking Ahead at Future Challenges

Technological development will almost certainly continue to drive conceptual and moral thinking in the future. This chapter concludes by briefly considering a current area of emerging concern: developing robust moral and legal guidelines for privacy protections in response to the possibilities of big data and AI generated content. While individual action is still meaningful, a person's privacy is increasingly affected by decisions at levels far beyond their individual control. Furthermore, even if individuals want to protect their own privacy, the barriers can be overwhelming. Simply becoming aware of the various ways in which privacy may be breached can require a significant investment of time into understanding technologies such as social media, smartphones, facial recognition, AI, and more. The challenge of protecting one's own privacy grows as the knowledge and time investment required to even understand possible threats to privacy become prohibitively large for a person who does not have specialized knowledge in the field.

Furthermore, knowledge does not always lead to the ability to take meaningful action to protect privacy. Almost three decades ago, Priscilla Regan (1995) noted that "Privacy is rapidly becoming a collective value in that technology and market forces are making it hard for any one person to have privacy without all persons having a similar minimum level of privacy." Achieving meaningful privacy protection requires collective action, cooperation from large corporations, and government regulation, given the large scale of influence necessary for effective change.

Regan's observation rings all the more true in our world of increasing technological interdependence. The responsibility to protect privacy will increasingly be unable to be borne by the individual, and those concerned with protecting privacy must insist that privacy be protected within the various systems and structures that affect our lives.

#### References

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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## What's So Special About Private Parts? How Anthropology Questions the Public–Private Dichotomy

### *Simon Hawkins*

#### Introduction

In so much of the conversation about privacy, people take the value and nature of privacy for granted. Of course, everyone wants privacy. Of course, privacy is fundamental to a well-functioning and just society. Indeed, the meaning of privacy appears so obvious that there often seems little need to define it. It is a simple term that we all use and understand. And yet, as is often the case with self-evident terms, the concept is trickier than it appears. The general definitions do not hold up terribly well. The standard dictionary definitions tend to emphasize being alone, being free from observation, or keeping personal information confidential. That sounds reasonable on its face, but upon reflection, there are far too many exceptions. One can certainly carve out a private moment even in a crowded or observed setting. Defining privacy in terms of personal

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University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2024

M. C. Lacity and L. Coon (eds.), *Human Privacy in Virtual and Physical Worlds*, Technology, Work and Globalization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51063-2\_3

information is still less useful, as it rests on a tautology. What constitutes personal information is that which we desire to keep private. Further complicating any definition is the fact that conceptions of privacy vary enormously from group to group, person to person, or even setting to setting.

The point here is not to undermine the idea of privacy so much as to demonstrate that the concept exists within social contexts rather than on an objective scale. Privacy is a shifting—not fixed—attribute. Under the right conditions, the public metamorphoses into the private and the private translates into the public. Beyond this, our very experience of privacy is itself cultural, and as such, privacy inhabits the socio-economic structure of our society. While some of the chapters in this book celebrate the liberatory power of privacy, privacy can also play a role in the oppression of marginalized groups. The anthropological examinations of privacy draw on the experiences of various groups of people in other times and places to question assumptions about the presumed nature, value, and ubiquity of privacy.

#### Public/Private Dichotomies of the Human Body

The starting point for this discussion must be the lack of any inherent quality of privateness found in any act or object. To lead with the cliched example, in the contemporary US, one's body is a symbol of privacy. To intrude upon someone when they were clad only in their underwear would be a gross violation of their privacy, yet at beaches and pools that standard disappears. One can go further, and discuss World Naked Bike Ride Day, in which hundreds of naked cyclists ride en masse through the streets of major cities like London (Fig. 3.1).

Here, the private transmutes into the public. The body is not inherently private, but the social and individual contexts make it so…except when they make it more public. Even this simplifies the issue, because it assumes that with regard to privacy, all bodies are the same. In reality, age, sex, race, size, and other factors all play a role in society's view of whether a body should be made public or kept private. One could go further still along the contemporary scale of privacy and discuss bodily elimination. So privatized are urination and defecation that modern houses have specific, lockable rooms for these activities, yet here too, this standard can be

**Fig. 3.1** "World Naked Bike Ride" Protestors Piccadilly Circus, London Athanasios Papadopoulos, Photographer Courtesy of Alamy

flipped. Long troughs for men's urination exist in a variety of large institutions and military barracks at various times have had communal toilets grouped together without any partitions (Hartzer et al., 2014).

To demonstrate that privacy is not an inherent objective quality is not to question its importance or power, but to begin to explore how societies create and use the idea of privacy. The fact that privacy is so malleable is part of its power. It can be a force of liberation and a force of oppression. To understand these dynamics, it is necessary to understand how the concept operates, or rather, how the private and public function. Privacy does not exist by itself; it is always in a comparative dichotomy with the concept of public. We use this distinction to categorize information, activities, and space itself. We cannot discuss privacy by itself, as the very nature of what is considered private depends upon a contrast with what is deemed public.

Beyond this malleable nature of privacy within a society, the underlying principles that guide the distinction between private and public are culturally determined. Even a superficial experience with cultures different from one's own yields different perspectives on privacy. Travel guides thrive on discussing these different expectations. Visitors are told that the French don't like questions about their lives (Thyebaut, 2018), that taking photos of women in Jordan is an invasion of privacy (Rough Guide), and that Americans "appreciate their privacy, especially when it comes to matters of money" (Penn State Harrisburg) and "can be very protective of their privacy and safety" (immihelp). But while this relativization is important, its explanatory power is limited. To simply say that the sense of privacy is determined by culture is to put it into a black box and avoids looking at the specific history of privacy within a community, the socio-economic forces that played a role in its development, and its intersection with other ideological dichotomies in the community.

#### Public/Private Dichotomies of Spaces

For example, the current particular character of the distinction between (private) home and (public) work in the US depends on the move from an agrarian society in which production was part of the home and both men and women were regarded as instrumental to economic production, to the physical separation of homes from wage earning workplaces and the association of men with work and women with home. This shift is itself linked to the rise of the suburbs and the creation of the home as a female space, a sanctuary of nature and serenity protected and buffered by a garden and a white picket fence. The workplace, by contrast, becomes masculine space, a constructed realm of rationality and competition. Clearly the conceptions of privacy stack with conceptions of gender, both of which are part of structural economic changes. Unsurprisingly, changes to understandings of gender roles have affected perceptions of privacy. The feminist slogan that "the personal is political" is based on the idea of making what had been considered private a subject of public debate. Domestic abuse had long been ignored because it was considered private, but increasing public outcry shifted that perspective (Kelly, 2003).

What these political struggles also illustrate is that while definitions of private versus public are socially determined, they are not universal within a society. Certainly, there is individual variation, but more importantly for social change, distinct groups within a society have different perspectives, which are in turn linked to their position within that society. The broad definitions of privacy support certain communities and hurt others. The suburban American dream of the house with a white picket fence is not just connected to gender, but also to class and race. The rise of the suburbs in the US was closely linked to the white flight of middle-class residents fleeing the cities (Jackson, 1987). The sanctuary and refuge of the suburban home was white and middle class, presuming the economic resources for a stay-at-home mother. We may experience private and public realms viscerally, but those emotions are rooted in the structures of our society.

#### Public/Private Dichotomies of Information

At the risk of over simplifying, in the US, the distinction between public and private is based on the individual. The connection is so self-evident that the linkage appears inevitable, even natural. As this chapter will go on to illustrate, this naturalness is an illusion. Societies can create separate realms of private and public that focus on units other than the individual. If that is the case, then one must ask what drives the US prioritization of the individual in privacy. It was not ever thus. One of the most cherished private acts, the individual's right to cast a secret ballot, is of recent origin. Early attempts to move toward privacy in voting were condemned by an old guard who proclaimed that they would "make any nation a nation of scoundrels" (Lepore, 2012, p. 247). Not coincidentally the move to secret ballots grew in the mid-nineteenth century as the population expanded and industrial and economic development leapt forward. The values of the emerging populist democracy matched those of the emerging economy, privileging the sanctity of individual choice free from community interference. The free market depends on individual autonomy and selection as much as broad-based democracy does. One cannot separate US prioritization of free individual choice from the economic or political system. The specific forms that privacy takes are certainly cultural, but not random or arbitrary. They are connected to larger ideological and material forces.

#### Public/Private Dichotomies Provide Meaning to Symbolic Acts

Because the categories of private and public are flexible, they can be a powerful tool for constructing and defining relationships or giving weight to a symbolic act. To return to the example of bodily elimination, grouping toilets together without dividers in a military barracks is not merely about efficiency. By making that most private act (in the contemporary US) shared with others, it breaks down the boundaries with those others. As much as the private act becomes public, so too does the public group of individuals become private. It creates a bond among them. As to the other example, the symbolic power of World Naked Bike Ride Day stemmed directly from the shock of exposing the private body in the public space. The ideological and political focus of the event was on reducing the reliance on fossil fuels, not something that is inherently linked to public nudity. The disruptive power of the mass violation of social privacy norms becomes linked to the massive changes needed for environmental protection. As with the previous example, this group activity becomes simultaneously public and private. Because it is a large group of people doing something together (and in this case, on public streets) it is public. However, for those viewing this from afar, it is still the inappropriate display of the private in a public setting. This ability for an act to be definable as both public and private is an underlying component of the dichotomy.

#### Private/Public Dichotomies: An Example from Egypt

In trying to understand privacy, however, one must examine the idea in other cultures. Because any individual's experience of privacy is quite visceral, it is easy to presume that it is natural and inherent. Looking at other cultural practices can shatter that sense of universality. It can also provide examples that better help individuals understand their own experiences through the various contrasts and similarities they find when engaging with the practices of people of different places and times. While it can be tempting to hop from one exotic example to another, any attempt to understand the structures of privacy must be rooted in their specific contexts. The parts can only be understood in relation to other parts.

The extended example below is taken from Farha Ghannam's (2002, 2013) ongoing research in a working-class neighborhood in Cairo, al-Zawiya al-Hamra. Its center is a series of large apartment blocks built in the late twentieth century as part of a modernization scheme by then President Anwar Sadat. The negotiation over private and public space and its shifting definition has been an ongoing theme for residents as they adapted to their new surroundings. Figure 3.2 shows an apartment complex in Cairo parallel to the one et al.-Zawiya.

On the face of it, life in al-Zawiya has a clear and strongly enforced distinction between private and public and this pattern would seem to match patterns in the US. Apartments are private and the streets are public, with that private domestic space coded as female and the streets and institutions beyond coded as male. There are even explicit markers of this status. Women must wear hijab, covering their hair, when they go out into those public spaces and must behave in a very constrained fashion. In the domestic spaces, however, there is far more freedom of behavior and clothing.

And yet, on a closer look, this firm binary distinction becomes shifting and unstable, defying easy expectations. The family unit drives the categorization of space and the activities housed there. All the members of a family (mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins) are judged by the actions of any member, giving all family members both a license and obligation to intervene and participate in the lives of other family members. This intrusion includes economic resources (money and labor), social resources (matchmaking, conflict resolution, networking), and moral resources (correcting poor behavior and extolling good behavior). It is effectively impossible for any given individual, male or female, to get married and become a functioning adult member of society without the active support of all their family. While individual actions matter a great deal, any individual will always be judged, for better or worse, by the reputation of their family in addition to their own actions and every individual will require the aid of their family.

This strong focus on family plays out in constructions of privacy, or more specifically, who is or is not included in private space and what are the boundaries between public and private realms. The domesticity of the home is the most private space, and yet to a US eye, there is extremely little privacy. Children of all ages may enter their parents' bedroom without knocking, unless of course, they are already there, as children typically sleep with their parents. The front door to the apartment is

**Fig. 3.2** Apartment block, Cairo, Egypt Petr Svarc, Photographer Courtesy of Alamy

generally kept open, as to close it is an aggressively rude act to one's neighbors. When relations are good, it is common for neighbors to casually walk into the main room of each other's apartments unannounced. Indeed, with the constant possibility of visitors, whether next-door neighbors or more removed guests, women and men may observe the modest standards of dress when in their own main room.

To describe the home as inherently private clearly does not work, as it takes on both public and private qualities. This is not merely a question about the nature of space, but the relations of people. The realm of the private includes family and the realm of family has flexibility itself and can include close community members. If privacy centers around the individual in the US, in this community, the family is at the center. Anyone who must spend an extended period by themselves is to be pitied, and both men and women live with their parents until they move into a home with their spouse. The family is not simply an economic unit, but also an emotional one, and that status is woven into the standards of privacy in the home.

If the category of the home as private space is more complicated than it might first appear, so too is the category of the street as a public space. Buildings orient toward a central square, an open space that would seem to be the epitome of public, and yet the social norms regarding it and the immediately adjacent streets are more nuanced. Society generally frowns upon married women working outside the home, but many women may set up small stalls in these exterior spaces, selling small dry goods, prepared foods, and candies (Fig. 3.3).