Privacy

[6] Islam's holy text, the Qur'an, states the following regarding privacy: ‘Do not spy on one another’ (49:12); ‘Do not enter any houses except your own homes unless you are sure of their occupants' consent’ (24:27).

German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) makes the distinction between moralität, which refers to an individual’s private judgment, and sittlichkeit, pertaining to one’s rights and obligations as defined by an existing corporate order.

In 2001, the legal case Kyllo v. United States (533 U.S. 27) determined that the use of thermal imaging devices that can reveal previously unknown information without a warrant constitutes a violation of privacy.

In 2019, after developing a corporate rivalry in competing voice-recognition software, Apple and Amazon required employees to listen to intimate moments and faithfully transcribe the contents.

In this case, the FBI used cell phone records without a warrant to arrest Timothy Ivory Carpenter on multiple charges, and the Supreme Court ruled that the warrantless search of cell phone records violated the Fourth Amendment, citing that the Fourth Amendment protects "reasonable expectations of privacy" and that information sent to third parties still falls under data that can be included under "reasonable expectations of privacy".

One notable example is Edward Snowden, who released multiple operations related to the mass surveillance operations of the National Security Agency (NSA), where it was discovered that the NSA continues to breach the security of millions of people, mainly through mass surveillance programs whether it was collecting great amounts of data through third party private companies, hacking into other embassies or frameworks of international countries, and various breaches of data, which prompted a culture shock and stirred international debate related to digital privacy.

Phenomena such as revenge porn and deepfakes are not merely individual because they require both the ability to obtain images without someone's consent as well as the social and economic infrastructure to disseminate that content widely.

[32] As a result, the ability of governments to protect their citizens' privacy is largely restricted to industrial policy, instituting controls on corporations that handle communications or personal data.

When social media sites and other online communities fail to invest in content moderation, an invasion of privacy can expose people to a much greater volume and degree of harassment than would otherwise be possible.

[46] A subsequent analysis found that the set of users who posted the most comments actually increased the number of "aggressive expressions" when forced to use their real name.

A recent MIT study by de Montjoye et al. showed that four spatio-temporal points constituting approximate places and times are enough to uniquely identify 95% of 1.5M people in a mobility database.

[53] In the wake of these types of scandals, many large American technology companies such as Google, Apple, and Facebook have been subjected to hearings and pressure under the U.S. legislative system.

In 2011, US Senator Al Franken wrote an open letter to Steve Jobs, noting the ability of iPhones and iPads to record and store users' locations in unencrypted files.

Importantly, directly observed behavior, such as browsing logs, search queries, or contents of a public Facebook profile, can be automatically processed to infer secondary information about an individual, such as sexual orientation, political and religious views, race, substance use, intelligence, and personality.

[66] The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights says "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with [their] privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon [their] honor and reputation.

[67] One example of the free market approach is to be found in the voluntary OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data.

[69] In a consumer protection approach, in contrast, it is claimed that individuals may not have the time or knowledge to make informed choices, or may not have reasonable alternatives available.

[95] The Supreme Court of the United States has found that other guarantees have penumbras that implicitly grant a right to privacy against government intrusion, for example in Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization later overruled Roe v. Wade, with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas characterizing Griswold's penumbral argument as having a "facial absurdity",[96] casting doubt on the validity of a constitutional right to privacy in the United States and of previous decisions relying on it.

[105] Edwin Lawrence Godkin wrote in the late 19th century that "nothing is better worthy of legal protection than private life, or, in other words, the right of every man to keep his affairs to himself, and to decide for himself to what extent they shall be the subject of public observation and discussion.

[112][113][This quote needs a citation][check quotation syntax] Alan Westin defined four states—or experiences—of privacy: solitude, intimacy, anonymity, and reserve.

This internal privacy, which Magnani refers to as a form of "information property" or "moral capital," is crucial for preserving free choice and personal agency.

The protection of privacy, therefore, safeguards our ability to develop and pursue personal projects in our own way, free from intrusive external forces.

[127] The studies of psychologists such as Jean Piaget and Victor Tausk show that, as children learn that they can control who can access and experience them and to what extent, they develop an autonomous self-concept.

Examples of possible efforts used to avoid the former, especially for modesty reasons, are clothes, walls, fences, privacy screens, cathedral glass, window coverings, etc.

Susan B. Barnes gave a case in her article: in a television interview about Facebook, a student addressed her concerns about disclosing personal information online.

[161] Other research finds that this lack of interpretability means users are much more likely to be swayed by cost, functionality, design, ratings, reviews and number of downloads than requested permissions for usage of their personal data.

The sale of personal data can result in targeted advertising, manipulation, and even potential security risks, as sensitive information can be exploited by malicious actors.

Many efforts are focused on processes of decision making, like restricting data access permissions during application installation, but this would not completely bridge the gap between user intention and behavior.

[186] Lack of privacy in public spaces, caused by overcrowding, increases health issues in animals, including heart disease and high blood pressure.