The Right to Privacy in the Age of Digital Technology

Abstract

Despite efforts to make the digital persona more transparent, the right to privacy has not lost its salience. Consumers and others are at risk of serious harm when their privacy is lost. Privacy is often misconstrued and defined too broadly. Our contention is that privacy is best interpreted as a condition of restricted access where users have limited control over their personal information. While privacy is important, it is not an intrinsic good. Rather, it is an instrumental good, valued not for its own sake but for its pivotal role in preserving and promoting other goods such as security, intimate friendship, and freedom. Because of its status as an instrumental good, privacy should be considered as an individual right that is owed to a person in justice in certain situations. Privacy rights should be secured by law, especially when sensitive information is at stake. But whether information requires normative protection depends not only on the nature of that information but also on the context.