Individual Privacy: A Social Construction?

Introduction

In order to change the massive trend of disappearing privacy, many aspects of our daily lives must change. However, before we can even begin to discuss the actual implementations of privacy protections, we must deal with the ideals that have led to the current situation. I am specifically referring to the ultimate ideal of individuality. While it is true that we are all biologically unique, the consequences of a blind adherence to this belief are dire from a privacy standpoint. We are social animals, and an acceptance of this will allow us to more accurately assess the dangers to our privacy. This paper will discuss a few of the deductions arising from the individuality ideal, how they obfuscate the privacy concerns every individual should have, and why a social-creature view is required.

Because I am an individual I am unique

Individualism has played an enormous role in American history. From the American dream of the self-made man to the "Be All You Can Be" army slogan, the emphasis has been on "you." Individual achievement is how we measure each person. The stress has never been on the society as a whole, but what an individual can obtain within the confines of society. While this mindset is a good way to encourage innovation, acknowledgment of achievement satisfies the selfish desires that reside in all of us, it ignores that we are representations and products of the society in which we developed. While we are by definition unique, both biologically and environmentally (no two people have ever been exposed to the exact same experiences), this uniqueness is not as drastic as people assume. The privacy concern that enters here is an assumption that because we are all unique, no one can ever truly "know" you. Thus, we are willing to let the world into our life through sites such as Facebook, as that is only what "we" want others to see. The belief is that your uniqueness is still protected because not only is your Facebook profile not a full representation of you, but also that it would be impossible for anyone to know more than you want them to as he/she cannot see every aspect of what shaped you. This is flawed for multiple reasons, but two very important interrelated misconceptions: 1) information about others cannot elucidate my individual characteristics, and 2) individuals are not predictable. The assumption seems to be that because no person is exactly the same as me, then no information about others can possibly reveal anything about me, and because I am uniquely different from every other person, we are not predictable.

Information about others does not reflect anything about me

We must first deal with this assumption as it plays a large role in the predictability argument. To start at a very basic level, many people assume that information they never disclose is therefore protected. However, this is clearly not true. First, everyone must realize that not only must you not disclose the information, but everyone else who has the information also must not disclose it. This has come into the conscious minds of job applicants all over, as they realize that not only must they monitor the pictures they post of themselves, but also the pictures others post of them. The ability to learn about you from others does not stop here. Assume that neither you nor anyone else has disclosed the information. Does that make it secure? The answer is no. In order to protect the privacy of your information it is not only necessary that you protect your information, but also that others protect that information about themselves. Recently there has been a discussion of the dangers of President Obama having a Blackberry. Should an interested party wish to find out which Blackberry was the President's, and thereby have knowledge of his whereabouts, that party would only need to deduce it from accessible information about others. For example, if everyone had kept the same phones, unless all of the phones were always in the same place, which would not be true as aides, staff and secret service agents would eventually go home, it would be easy to deduce which phone belonged to the President. _See_ Obama phone article. The article goes on to discuss that anonymity would only be possible if a large enough group within the White House changed their phones as often as the President. While this is an extreme example of what can be gleaned from knowing information about others, the point is very important. Indirectly gained knowledge is just as informative as that gained directly, and knowledge about each one of us is indirectly provided by others if they are not as concerned with privacy as we are.

Because I am unique I am unpredictable

The dispelling of this assumption is one of the most important tasks. The belief seems to come from the idea that because one never always knows either what or he is going to do, or why he is going to do it, how could someone else possibly know this? The problem is that there are unconscious patterns which we all follow, that are more apparent than we believe. Take buying a new piece of technology for example. How much research do you normally put into this? How many times do you look at the piece you eventually buy? How long from the time you start looking into the technology does it take you to buy? All of these factors are easily recordable based on your website visitation patterns and Google searches. Could someone influence your decision on what piece of technology to buy (or where you buy it from) by having access to this information? If you are typically an impulse buyer and Google returns an advertisement for a "One-day Sale," might you buy that item even if the "One-day Sale" price is actually more expensive than it would normally be? This does not seem a very dangerous occurrence at first, after all you are only spending some extra money, but what does this say about your autonomy? If others can strongly influence your behavior through this information, it is not a leap to say you are not in complete control of your actions. Many individuals will say that others cannot predict your behavior, but this is precisely what targeted advertisements are. Based on certain known characteristics, advertisers are more effective enticing consumers to become consumers. Once again, this need not be information directly about you, but rather can be information about others that is used to predict your behavior. I have used consumer transactions as an example because they are easy to explain, but the real dangers to autonomy become apparent when we expand the scope. Where the patterns of your behavior are observable, the question of what you are going to do next becomes a mere steering inquiry.

Conclusion

The conundrum of the individuality ideal is the always present rebuttal to the entire argument above: "So what? I am not important enough for anyone to care about me." Yet this is precisely the reason why we need to reconsider our "individuality." Maybe you are not important enough for anyone to care about any of these things for you specifically, but because you are part of the society that everyone lives in, information about you is used invade the privacy of others that are that important. In other words, in order for any of our privacy to be protected, all of our privacy must be protected. A society may be made up of individuals, but every individual is a product of that society. Without protecting the society as a whole, no one is protected.

-- MattDavisRatner - 05 Mar 2009