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Privacy in Peril: How We are Sacrificing a Fundamental Right in Exchange for Security and Convenience
We are all accustomed to privacy horror stories, like identity theft, where stored personal data gets misdirected for criminal purposes. But we should worry less about the illegal uses of personal data, James B. Rule argues, and worry a lot more about the perfectly legal uses of our data by
the government and private industry, uses which are far more widespread and far more dangerous to our interests than we'd ever suspect.
This provocative book takes readers on a probing, far-reaching tour of the erosion of privacy in American society, showing that we are often unwitting accomplices, providing personal data in exchange for security or convenience. The author reveals that in today's "information society," the
personal data that we make available to virtually any organization for virtually any purpose is apt to surface elsewhere, applied to utterly different purposes. The mass collection and processing of personal information produces such tremendous efficiencies that both the public and private sector
feel justified in pushing as far as they can into our private lives. And there is no easy cure. Indeed, there are many cases where privacy invasion is both hurtful to the individual and indispensable to an organization's quest for efficiency. Unrestricted snooping into citizens' personal finances
really does boost the profitability of the consumer credit industry. Insurance companies really can and do make more money by using intimate private data to decide whom to insure, and what to charge. And as long as we willingly accept the pursuit of profit, or the reduction of crime, or cutting
government costs as sufficient reason for intensified scrutiny over private citizens' lives, then privacy values will remain endangered.
Rule offers no simple answers to this modern conundrum. Rather, he provides a sophisticated and often troubling account that promises to fundamentally alter the privacy debate.
the government and private industry, uses which are far more widespread and far more dangerous to our interests than we'd ever suspect.
This provocative book takes readers on a probing, far-reaching tour of the erosion of privacy in American society, showing that we are often unwitting accomplices, providing personal data in exchange for security or convenience. The author reveals that in today's "information society," the
personal data that we make available to virtually any organization for virtually any purpose is apt to surface elsewhere, applied to utterly different purposes. The mass collection and processing of personal information produces such tremendous efficiencies that both the public and private sector
feel justified in pushing as far as they can into our private lives. And there is no easy cure. Indeed, there are many cases where privacy invasion is both hurtful to the individual and indispensable to an organization's quest for efficiency. Unrestricted snooping into citizens' personal finances
really does boost the profitability of the consumer credit industry. Insurance companies really can and do make more money by using intimate private data to decide whom to insure, and what to charge. And as long as we willingly accept the pursuit of profit, or the reduction of crime, or cutting
government costs as sufficient reason for intensified scrutiny over private citizens' lives, then privacy values will remain endangered.
Rule offers no simple answers to this modern conundrum. Rather, he provides a sophisticated and often troubling account that promises to fundamentally alter the privacy debate.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published October 3, 2007
3 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 13, 2020
Rule is a humble servant of the Big Brother. And he loves Big Brother with all his mind and hates the Capitalists enemies of the Big Brother. And it happens that the enemies in this book are the guys who are accused to hide millions from the grubby hands of other bureaucrats like Rule. And if Google keeps "their fair share", how are the individuals like Rule going to make their good life? Work?
April 7, 2011
I agree with the author that the promise of total security and efficiency would not make the destruction of privacy worth the bargain.
Didn't know this: There is an absence of consumer credit reporting in France that ensures a measure of privacy unavailable to residents of USA, CANADA and the UK.
Celebs have the right to control trade in the use of their name--ordinary citizens should at least own their own data. Make data piracy a tort. Fatalism constitutes the greatest obstacle to meaningful privacy protection. The issues involved are ethical and political, not technological."
There is no reason to conclude that privacy is somehow already definitely "lost" In fact, personal data are loose only so far as their capture and use are held legal and legitimate. If the unauthorized selling of "background reports" on private citizens subjected the sellers to court judgments like those handed down to victims of cigarette smoking or defective drugs, the practices would quickly cease."
The only meaningful strategy for privacy protection is to bear the significant costs of knowing less about people's lives. ..The new default condition for public policy should be no government surveillance without meaningful individual consent or legislative authorization.
"The logic of surveillance...discrimination is the ultimate aim. Governments invoke value of efficiency and justice to justify surveillance. In private sector, the reward for effective discrimination is profit. ..personal data has become a commodity."
"Of any prosperous democracy, America has the least effective public measures to control commercial exchange of personal data."
"medical care has become one of the most monitored and documented realms of life. By historical standards, this obsession with recording, transmitting, and analyzing details on what used to be considered the most private area of life is relatively recent."
Didn't know this: There is an absence of consumer credit reporting in France that ensures a measure of privacy unavailable to residents of USA, CANADA and the UK.
Celebs have the right to control trade in the use of their name--ordinary citizens should at least own their own data. Make data piracy a tort. Fatalism constitutes the greatest obstacle to meaningful privacy protection. The issues involved are ethical and political, not technological."
There is no reason to conclude that privacy is somehow already definitely "lost" In fact, personal data are loose only so far as their capture and use are held legal and legitimate. If the unauthorized selling of "background reports" on private citizens subjected the sellers to court judgments like those handed down to victims of cigarette smoking or defective drugs, the practices would quickly cease."
The only meaningful strategy for privacy protection is to bear the significant costs of knowing less about people's lives. ..The new default condition for public policy should be no government surveillance without meaningful individual consent or legislative authorization.
"The logic of surveillance...discrimination is the ultimate aim. Governments invoke value of efficiency and justice to justify surveillance. In private sector, the reward for effective discrimination is profit. ..personal data has become a commodity."
"Of any prosperous democracy, America has the least effective public measures to control commercial exchange of personal data."
"medical care has become one of the most monitored and documented realms of life. By historical standards, this obsession with recording, transmitting, and analyzing details on what used to be considered the most private area of life is relatively recent."
August 5, 2008
Enlightening look at the history of privacy and at the implications in the future. Has a few flaws
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews