Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life

Helen Nissenbaum

Published by Stanford University Press 2009

Privacy in Context

Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life

Helen Nissenbaum

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804772891

Overview
Contents

About this book

As use of information technology increases, we worry that our personal information is being shared inappropriately, violating key social norms and irreversibly eroding privacy. This book describes how societies ought to go about deciding when to allow technology to lead change and when to resist it in the name of privacy.

Author / Editor information

Helen Nissenbaum is Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, and Computer Science and Senior Fellow of the Information Law Institute at New York University. She is the coeditor of Academy and the Internet (2004) and Computers, Ethics, and Social Values (1995), and the author of Emotion and Focus (1985).

Reviews

Daniel J. Solove:
"This book provides a refreshing, contemporary look at information privacy in the twenty-first century. Nissenbaum persuasively argues that privacy must be understood in its social context, and she provides an insightful and illuminating account of how to do so. For anyone considering the burgeoning problems of information privacy, Privacy in Context is essential reading."

Michael D. Birnhack:
"[Privacy in Context] takes the privacy discourse several steps ahead. Nissenbaum sets an ambitious goal and accomplishes it in grand fashion. She proposes a detailed framework to better understand privacy issues and assist in prescribing privacy policies that meets the needs of the 21st century . . . [T]he book breaks new paths. It signals the beginning of a new privacy paradigm (an assessment that will be easier judged in hindsight) and is an important contribution to the growing law and technology literature."

Evgeny Morozov:
"Nissenbaum has written a badly needed and accessible book that can serve as a guide through the emerging digital maze without demanding that we surrender our right to privacy in return... Her book offers a straightforward and articulate account of the role that privacy plays in a democratic society, the ways in which technology undermines it, and the steps we need to take to ensure that we don't succumb to the faulty logic of data-hungry corporations."

Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology:
"This much anticipated book, written by one of the world's most brilliant, dynamic philosophers of technology, offers a model for predicting and explaining privacy breaches. It also furnishes pragmatic solutions for resolving policy disputes about newly proposed socio-technical information systems. It solves puzzles not easily resolved by traditional privacy theory, advances a coherent framework for rejecting the private/public dichotomy as the basis for the right to privacy, and contributes to a deeper understanding of judicial constructs used to resolve hard cases. Helen Nissenbaum has achieved what many of us have yearned for."

Tony Doyle:
"[S]ubtle and important . . . There is no doubt that Nissenbaum thinks with the learned . . Before the book appeared Nissenbaum's work on privacy was already well respected and widely cited. The present book should seal her reputation as one of a handful of leading privacy theorists today. My guess is that the book will be required reading for a long while to come for all who want to make significant contributions to the debate about the ethics of privacy."

Yochai Benkler:
"Privacy in Context is a major achievement. It is rare for anyone to come into a field so well plowed and make a genuine contribution. Grounded in extensive knowledge of the theoretical literature and a real engagement with the practicalities of informational instability that surround us, Nissenbaum's new framing of the tensions raised by surveillance and processing of information is important. Practical and oriented to the world and its social practices, rather than to abstractions or formal claims, contextual integrity is a concept both rich and detailed, with which any serious debate about privacy in the networked environment must now engage."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I: Information Technology’s Power and Threat
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
1. Keeping Track and Watching over Us Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2. Knowing Us Better than We Know Ourselves: Massive and Deep Databases Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
3. Capacity to Spread and Find Everything, Everywhere Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
PART II: Critical Survey of Predominant Approaches to Privacy
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
4. Locating the Value in Privacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
5. Privacy in Private Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
6. Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Privacy in Public Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
PART III: The Framework of Contextual Integrity
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
7. Contexts, Informational Norms, Actors, Attributes, and Transmission Principles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
8. Breaking Rules for Good Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
9. Privacy Rights in Context: Applying the Framework Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 304

eBook

Published: November 24, 2009
ISBN: 9780804772891