Muddled concepts of privacy can bring muddled results

What is this thing called “privacy”? We hear a lot about it. Some people are hard-liners about preserving it. Others are only too willing to trade it away for a passing convenience or an illusion of security. But unless we can define it, we’re left talking in circles. As anyone who’s written more than two lines of code can tell you, unless you define your variables and use them consistently, you’re going to end up with unexpected and undesirable results.

I don’t have the definitive answer on what privacy is, but do take some small comfort in the fact that I don’t think anyone else does either. In fact, even when attending privacy conferences, speakers who deal with these issues all the time will use the term in decidedly different ways.

One way of approaching the topic is to see privacy as some overarching concept that includes several components that, while distinct, are related. These would include such things as secrecy, anonymity, and confidentiality. Another way of looking at it is a more narrow view, seeing privacy as being one of those components — related to the others, and sometimes overlapping, but always distinct. I prefer the latter view.

Defining secrecy is the simplest. There are facts that we don’t wish others to know. Whether these facts are our innermost thoughts, our view of God, our recipe for meatloaf, or who we voted for in the last election, the simplest way to keep them secret is not to share those facts with anyone and not to leave a trail, paper or otherwise.

Once we do tell someone or write the “secret” in a place it could ultimately be found, its secrecy has been compromised. I’m willing to bet that if you looked under all the mouse pads in the country, you’d find that a huge percentage of them would have all the “secret” usernames and passwords you need to go into the identity theft business.

Even so, maintaining secrecy is easy. Just don’t tell anyone, don’t leave a trail, and don’t tantalize people with “hints.” Even letting someone know you have a secret is a form of compromise.

A related concept is anonymity, in which you don’t reveal who you are or you take on a persona that is different from the persona by which you’re commonly recognized. Anonymity, despised by some, actually has a long, time-honored tradition. In the U.S. experience, the “Federalist Papers” were originally published anonymously, the participants in the Boston Tea Party acted in disguise, and the signers of the Declaration of Independence were considered quite brave for coming out of the patriotic closet and putting their actual names on the document.

A more recent example — although a little less weighty — is the current use of “screen names” or “handles,” in which a mild-mannered clerical worker by day becomes “cyberstudxxx” by night or groups of stimulus-deprived college guys go into a chat room after assuming the identity of a supposedly gorgeous female.

In between the weighty and the trivial are many areas in which anonymity plays a key role — and so has its defenders. On the other hand, some people use anonymity for all the wrong reasons — and so the concept has its detractors. I won’t try to settle the debate here, but suffice it to say that there are good arguments on both sides.

Privacy, at least by my definition, includes, among other things, my right to control the access that others have to information about me. The balance in my bank account, for example, is not a secret. The bank surely knows it. In fact, I want them to have a pretty good handle on just how much I have in there.

I may want some other people to know that information — the mortgage company which is considering me for a loan, for example. So, I tell the mortgage company the balance, and I ask the bank to verify it. But I don’t want my balance to become public knowledge. If someone hacks into the bank records and records my account activity, that person has violated my privacy. If the bank or mortgage company shares that information without my permission, then it also has violated my privacy.

Many people have a difficult time with the concept of privacy and see it as a binary characteristic — either I have it or I don’t — and this can lead to erroneous assumptions. One of the most common misbeliefs is that by revealing information about myself, or even going into a public place, I have somehow given up, or “forfeited,” my right to privacy.

Among this group are those people who believe that every time I set foot outside my house I am fair game and that all my activities can be recorded and exploited. I disagree with that notion. Even in public places I think there is still an expectation of a reasonable degree of anonymity and a large degree of control over how I am portrayed. Certainly, a stranger can glance at me on the street. Taking my picture, however, unless I am a public person, should require my consent. Legally, of course, there is no such requirement. Ethically, I think there is.

My image, along with my personal information, is something I should maintain under my own control. If I reveal something to another person — if only by my physical presence — I am not necessarily giving up my right to privacy, but instead I am exercising that right by deciding who gets what information and under what circumstances. I may have forfeited my secrecy or anonymity, but not my privacy.

Very often, although not always, I reveal that information with an expectation — either implied or explicit — that it will be treated confidentially. Even if the recipient violates that trust, my right to privacy remains intact; the other party has just violated it. Rights, after all, do not evaporate when they are infringed. They are damaged, but are still in force. Secrecy, anonymity, and confidentiality may be gone, but I have not “forfeited” my right to privacy.

A more important and much more difficult question is whether I can forfeit that right and how that happens. If I choose not to reveal information or if I choose to reveal it, I would be exercising, not forfeiting, the right. So, what would constitute forfeiture? Perhaps we can look at it the same as our right to liberty. You can take me into slavery. My right to liberty does not go away. It is merely violated. And we generally agree that I am not allowed — morally or legally — to sell myself into slavery. The right, we say, is inalienable. Perhaps the same pertains to privacy.

Whether we will ever have a definition of “privacy” that suits everyone’s needs remains to be seen. But until we have such an agreement, it’s important to define what we mean by the term whenever we have a serious discussion, lest we end up talking in circles and acting inappropriately.

As I said, I have an answer that I think works, but it’s not the definitive one. I could be wrong. If I am, I’m sure you’ll let me know at ethics_matters@infoworld.com.