The Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics
and American Institutions

Privacy in Public: Ethics, Privacy and the Technology of Public Surveillance

Issues | Deborah Johnson | Helen Nissenbaum | Deirdre Mulligan | Richard De George

Issues

Recent advances in technology have greatly expanded our ability to acquire private and confidential information as well as to access public records. Increasingly, technology is being developed to expand our capacities to monitor ongoing individual behavior. Making credit card purchases, placing online orders, visiting and registering at websites, and participating in online chat groups are all activities that technology allows us to monitor. Chips implanted in various commodities, home security systems, EZ passes on toll roads, video technology, and face recognition technologies are but a few examples in which our powers of surveillance are steadily affecting our everyday lives. Information technology is essential to gathering such personal information and/or making it publicly accessible.

The prevailing ethical view of privacy has been that we ought to protect a sphere of privacy as a matter of "respect for persons" and out of concern for the value of individual liberty. But in general that view has been applied only to issues pertaining to intimate realms, such as family, sex, and medicine, with the aim of limiting governmental intrusion. Such an approach has yet to explore fully whether there is a sphere of privacy that is worthy of protection from non-governmental organizations. Nor has there been sufficient attention devoted to clarifying how to draw the boundary between "public" and "private" spheres when both of are in non-governmental arenas.

Recently, ethicists have begun to rethink the conventional view of privacy in light of the challenges raised by the technologies now available. The key issue is whether there is a morally legitimate sphere of privacy in the public sphere - one that extends beyond matters of governmental oversight and surveillance - that should be recognized and protected.

This series of seminars addressed various ethical aspects of these matters. Each seminar included discussion of a case study, a public address by the visiting scholar, followed by commentary by a local campus scholar. The series was supported by a New Frontiers Grant from the Office of the Vice-Provost for Research at Indiana University.

Completed Workshops

Deborah Johnson

Thursday, September 21, 2006
"Privacy in Public? Technology, Privacy, and Democracy"

Professor Johnson is the Anne Shirley Carter Olsson Professor of Applied Ethics at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science. She is co-editor of Computers, Ethics, and Social Values (Prentice-Hall), author of Computer Ethics (Prentice-Hall), and co-editor of the journal, Ethics and Information Technology (Kluwer).

Eden Medina, Richard Miller, and Deborah Johnson after the first Privacy and Technology lecture.

There was a workshop at 3 p.m. with case study discussion. The photo shows the groups making notes about the issues raised in the case studies. The lecture was at 4 p.m., with a response presented by Professor Eden Medina, School of Informatics.

Helen Nissenbaum, Richard Miller, and Barry Bull

Fred Cate, Richard Miller, and Deirdre Mulligan

Richard T. De George

Thursday, October 11, 2007
"Privacy, Public Space and Non-Governmental Surveillance"

The Ethics of Information Technology and Business (Blackwell). The workshop began with discussion of a case study, followed by the lecture, response from Peter Finn, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, IUB, and questions and answers. The host was Brian Schrag, acting director of the Poynter Center.

Brian Schrag, Richard De George, and Peter Finn

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