Lecture 1 - Ethics

Question 1

What is privacy?

Answer 1

Difficult to define; but think of:
- Freedom of thought
- Control over your own body
- Control over your information
- Being protected against surveillance

Question 2

What kind of right is privacy in the UN/ EU?

Answer 2

A human right

Question 3

What are the two classic definitions of privacy?

Answer 3

1. Not accessible (Reiman, Robinson Crusoe)
2. Control access (Westin, Roessier)

Question 4

What are the three dimensions of privacy?

Answer 4

1. Informational
2. Local
3. Decisional

Question 5

What is informational privacy?

Answer 5

Concerns information that others have about me. Control access over information. Powered by informational privacy standards.

Question 6

What is local privacy?

Answer 6

The classic concept of privacy as the private sphere: the household/ the house. Family and intimate relationships.

Question 7

What is decisional privacy?

Answer 7

The classic liberal idea of privacy and freedom: freedom of religion, of speech etc. Anti-interference is the basis. (Roe v. Wade)

Question 8

Why do we distinguish between the three types of privacy?

Answer 8

Informational privacy doesn’t cover everything. Often these dimensions are intertwined.

Question 9

What are privacy norms?

Answer 9

Common, dynamic, social rules of conduct (and expectations) about what we share with whom and in what context (Nissenbaum 2009). Privacy standards are social and dynamic and thus change per time/ culture/ context.

Question 10

Why privacy?

Answer 10

• Decide for ourselves with whom we do or do not want to share our information, our lives and our homes.
• Making our own decisions (autonomy)
• Being able to regulate and reasonably estimate who has access to what information about me
• Autonomous self-presentation
• Social life: without privacy, its impossible to establish diverse, meaningful and authentic relationships

Question 11

Why is privacy social?

Answer 11

• Protects social relationships
• Protects not only you but also (less privileged) others
• Protects a free society
• Surveillance makes you vulnerable to manipulation and discrimination
• Privacy provides a counterbalance to a healthy balance of power in a liberal democratic constitutional state

Question 12

What is surveillance?

Answer 12

“The focused, systematic, and routine attention to (personal) details for purposes of influence, management, protection or direction.”

Question 13

What are the three types of surveillance theory?

Answer 13

1. Panoptic surveillance theory
2. Post-panoptic surveillance theory
3. More surveillance theory

Question 14

What is Panoptic Surveillance Theory?

Answer 14

The architecture of the panopticon as a metaphor for surveillance in social institutions with the result of internalised discipline and self-surveillance.

Question 15

What is the post-panoptic surveillance theory?

Answer 15

Post-panopticon: control society (digital (surveillance) capitalism).

Question 16

What is more surveillance theory? (as part of the three types of surveillance theories)

Answer 16

Surveillance capitalism. “A new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction and sales”

Question 17

How is surveillance at tension with democracy?

Answer 17

Interference and control vs free and autonomous citizens. Privacy is important for a liberal democracy multiple conceptions of the good life & discussion.

Question 18

What does lack of diversity mean as a result of lack of privacy?

Answer 18

Homogenisation and conventionalisation of relationships.

Question 19

What is privacy a prerequisite for in society?

Answer 19

Creating the space for experimentation, dissent and the development of one’s own unique personality.