Information Technology, Science and Society.
Privacy vs. Freedom of Information
Abstract This essay discusses the issues concerned with privacy and freedom of information ranging from the rights of the individual, the responsibility of the state and the influence of modern technology on each of these. There is a fine balance between the need for individuals to protect their privacy and the contending pressures of business, government and the exigencies of modern life. There are no easy answers to these questions and everybody needs to weigh their willingness to compromise in the light of competing claims. The issues of privacy versus freedom of information have always been with us. It is a balancing act, between the needs of individuals and the demands of the society in which they live. There are three main issues and areas of concern. The first is how much other people may access our own personal information. Another is how much we should have access to our own private information that other people hold, and the last how much access we should have to “public” information. From our personal data protection point of view it is clear that the growth of population and technology have meant not only an escalation in the number of ways information is collected and filed but also an increase in the different methods it can be accessed. The growth of population has been more than matched by the amount of information compiled about each one of us. We need to have some protection from this wholesale accumulation and dissemination of data about us. Doctors and employers collect private information about us, and need to acknowledge we have a right to know that. Governments protect the information they hold about us and about the their operations and they too have an obligation to share that appropriately. http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/BeyondFIP.html quotes Morison Privacy is the interest that individuals have in sustaining a 'personal space', free from interference by other people and organisations. Of course, this is never absolute because we are part of a society and we share a need to communicate and interact with other members of our society. That contact means that we give away information, sometimes voluntarily in return for some perceived benefit and sometimes less willingly to comply with our duty as citizens. It is essential that we should be in control of what information is collected about ourselves and by whom and about what. The operation should be transparent. If a prospective employer contacts a previous employer without our consent should they be able to do so? I would contend not. If a doctor has health information about us, should he be obliged to reveal it? I would think so. Discussion of these concepts leads Clarke to define Information Privacy is the interest an individual has in controlling, or at least significantly influencing, the handling of data about themselves. and Privacy Protection is a process of finding appropriate balances between privacy and multiple competing interests. There is always a conflict between the contending claims of groups of various kinds that maintain a right to invade our privacy in various ways and our right to protect that privacy. Corporations and businesses accumulate our details and preferences so they can target our buying patterns. The Press is very quick to claim they have a right to protect their sources of “information” but just as quick to claim a right to demand answers to questions about anything they consider news. Anyone who has been involved n the smallest way with the media will know how little relationship there is with what is reported and any approximation of truth, so the demands the Press make to invade personal privacy sound a little thin. However, we do not nor would not like a situation where the press did not report the news because governments or corporations has control of the media and prevents the population free access to what is going on (however limited that reporting might be). Similarly, we many object quite strongly if governments or vocal minorities prevent access to information in too exacting a fashion. The recent censorship legislation in Australia and overseas has been challenged by many, as it tends to be unworkable on one hand and too heavy handed on the other. The chaotic and international nature of the Internet means that controlling what goes onto the web is very difficult. We may be able to have a particular site mounted in Australia taken down, but nothing will prevent a similar one popping up in Italy or Taiwan. Governments who try to control news have found the web impossible to control. It slips through their fingers. Issues about intellectual property also come into the equation. Somehow, some people think that if information is available through the net then it is free to steal and use without payment or acknowledgment. Basic honesty is needed as much with the Internet as it is in shopping at the mall. However, methods of control and legal recourse needs to just as careful with “net” crime as any other. Ludlow reports http://semlab2.sbs.sunysb.edu/Users/pludlow/intro1.html the rights of a number of innocent people were trampled by government zeal to crack down on alleged piracy of some form or another.. The moral is whatever the evils of piracy might be, it does not immediately follow that any arbitrary ham-handed governmental response is appropriate Filtering software applied in schools, while it may stop access to some pornography and other undesirable information, can often prevent admittance to knowledge that is necessary for an impartial examination of multiple viewpoints that marks a balanced education. Of course, duty of care rules that students should be protected from inappropriate sites whether they are pornographic, “hate” mongers or criminal. However, what seems to happen is that that things that out of the conventional or main stream are also filtered so sites about abortion, homosexuality, opposing political or religious views may be stopped so students become “uncontaminated” by opposing ideas. Whereas we might have books on controversial issues somehow that same information on the net is reprehensible. Maybe the students will actually read it! Clarke has written extensively http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/ on the different ways both governments and corporations impinge on our privacy and interfere in our right to protection. He is passionate about the dangers these organizations pose to our right to guard our privacy. He sees the balance is very uneven. The facilities of the web and other technology mean we are subject to a kind of surveillance that is similar to that in the novel “1984” It is very clear that all governments use technology of various kinds to track and record information about its citizens. While this once was confined to legal phone tapping now it ranges from “listening in” to chat rooms and newsgroups to monitoring e-mail, internet traffic, satellite spying, public video taping and tracking mobile phones. The surveillance tends to be without any legal oversight, partly because it is so difficult to police. Who’s watching the watchers? Lyford http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v1n3/lyford.txt quotes Judge Cooley privacy is "the right to be let alone." Lyford maintains this simple idea is far from realistic and never was an option, but goes on to consider the number of laws and regulations in international law that should guarantee us some rights. But we never did have the right to be left alone and international law has limited reign Obviously, to be members of a modern society there are some kinds of information, like that about our earnings so we can pay our taxes, we must divulge to others unless we are to run foul of the law. The trouble with this is that it seems very easy for the information to be accessed either on purpose or accidentally by those who should not be informed of it. There has always been a concern with how much others, especially the government, have a right to ascertain our particulars, but now more than ever it seems that it is possible to track the movements and activities of any individual. Not that long ago there was a huge public debate about whether there should be an Australia card which identified everyone much like the Social Security card in the United States. Many, especially civil liberty activists who saw such a move as one which would reduce our autonomy, rejected this suggestion. However it seems as if that threat was averted other mechanisms have been instituted which accomplish the same thing with a lot less controls over them than a government managed operation might have had. Roger Clarke (http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/SLJ.html) has written extensively about this development. The taxation department insists we all have a tax file number. This is to prevent people from dodging their tax responsibilities. But it also has the effect of handing the tax department and banks and financial institutions a huge amount of information about us that is none of their concern. The requirement to use tax file numbers has effectively meant that people have information tagged and tied to us. On a similar matter, once, in Western Australia, there was a choice whether or not our driver’s license had our photograph on it, recently it has become mandatory. This tracking of information about us while it might seem unexceptional can be used in ways that endanger our civil liberties, our right to carry on our lives without interference when that does not interfere with others or our legal obligations to the state. The similar access to our details is available to banks and other financial institutions. To have the convenience of modern banking we use credit cards and cheques They have numbers for our accounts, our credit or eftpos cards, require different passwords to access our accounts at ATMs or online and are able to consider our credit rating if we give them permission. The diverse number of pin numbers and other numbers we have to remember is an attempt to guard secrets. The very fact we have so many different numbers is our society’s way of trying to keep secrets. Unfortunately, it makes slaves of us. We become a number, a code to each organization we deal with. Our name is not enough, and the number, despite all promises to the contrary makes financial institutions less efficient and not more so. To facilitate meeting and communicating with others we have phones and e-mail addresses and often share the contacts although we can choose not to do so, but that limits the number of people who can communicate us.. We may make a conscious choice to reveal information and personal details to various institutions and businesses, say those with whom we have dealings, but such information, for example about contact details and buying habits, are bought and sold by many, not necessarily with our knowledge or consent. To use the facility of huge information and buying power we use the Internet. Each of these activities allows other people to collect information about us. Many times this information is sold, or passed on to people we would not like to have it. When this is on the Internet we are “spammed” by tiresome and unhelpful e-mails with “get rich quick” schemes, touting for sales. Outside the net we get junk mail for diet schemes and Chinese restaurants, and endless telephone calls about shutters and security systems. Sometimes that information is incorrect and misleading which further complicates the equation. The multitude of recordings made about each individual by government and commercial interests again is uncomfortable, and more often than not mistaken and in error. We often have no control over what information is gathered or neither by whom, nor whether it is correct or not. Census takers used to be instructed to burn papers after statistics had been calculated to stop people from using private information, now there is a push to retain them for further analysis. In earlier times information was collected in paper form and only available for a limited number of people to peruse, now with the information online the accidental or deliberate access to our details is much ore likely. Gindin’s paper http://www.info-law.com/lost.html discusses many of the problems we encounter with using the Internet. With the increase of e-commerce and online transactions we voluntarily release very private information. We hope this is to reliable sources but that may not be the case. Also, it is very easy in other online communications to give information away without even being aware of doing so. Many computers can track the site you come from and other information about you and your computer. Cookies inserted into your computer can gather all kinds of data. While some are concerned about these issues: While the E-commerce centre can say Your site should provide your customers with choices regarding the use of their personal information and incorporate security procedures to limit access to customer information by unauthorised parties http://www.ecommercecentre.online.wa.gov.au/matrix/priv.htm) It is very unlikely that most organizations deal as ethically with our personal information as we would wish them to do. Many people are very concerned about the amount of information that is collected and disseminated without consumers being aware that it is happening. Much information is collected and sold to third parties for use with merchandising. This has always been the case with marketing and business firms but technology makes the process easier. The prevalence of junk mail and viruses sent through the mail as well as hackers can make our participation in the Internet experience fraught with danger. There are many Internet sites and other advice available for those who want to minimise the problems of using the Internet, like using anonymous searching software, turning off cookies and never filling in forms or using credit cards but this restricts the use of some of the benefits of the web. Employers think they are justified in tracking, recording and reading staff e-mails, with the excuse that the computer is being used in work time. They usually (though not always inform) staff of the probability that they will do so They have “good” reasons for doing so such as involving productivity, copyright, possibility of harassment etc. However, few bosses go into a worker’s office and read all their mail and files even though they too have been created in work time too. And not yet do we have many offices and workrooms bugged and videotaped. There are people like Tuccille, J.D. http://civilliberty.about.com/newsissues/civilliberty/library/howto/htpriv.htm and Martin Lyons æhttp://www.sprocket.com/~marty/Privacy.html about protection of your privacy that outlines what you can do to avoid this pigeon holing, and the craze for obtaining your data. However, some of the kinds of things that are advocated would mean not participating in modern life, and some would make you run foul of the law. We cannot turn back the clock to a pastoral idyll where there are no invasions of privacy, but maybe we can reduce the invasion of privacy to manageable levels. Any middle ground is hard to maintain as people typically like nice clear-cut black and white divisions so they are comfortable and everything is easy. As Perton says, If we consider the continuum between total transparency and total protection of privacy, the answer lies in the middle. http://home.vicnet.net.au/~victorp/speeches/FOI%20May%201999.htm In a 1996 article Mark Lillywhite contended http://home.netconnect.com.au/tools/essays/privacy-pt1.html there was no real law guaranteeing Australians a right to privacy until the 1998 legislation and that let a lot of things slip through the cracks In Australia there are a new amendments to the law guaranteeing privacy, explained at the Privacy Commission site http://www.privacy.gov.au/news/pab.html which deals with a number of these privacy issues but it is not as clear cut as it would seem to establish fair and effective legislation. It does try to deal in some ways with issues about
However, in Opinion 3/2001 http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/media/dataprot/wpdocs/wp40en.htm the new Australian privacy amendments is still held by the European Union to be inadequate as it still (among other things) allows small businesses to evade the law; past employers may pass on sensitive information about past employees; direct mailers may collect information without any hindrance if that is their avowed purpose. This is not something that can be solved by waving a magic wand, but some awareness of the problems may make the process easier to control .We should be able to get access to our own private records that anyone else has and even more right to correct false information if it exists. For example health records held by doctors are an obvious case, but many of the medical profession are very wary of the demand for that kind of information as it may be used to question their judgement (not a bad thing in my opinion!) Similarly, we should have the right to access information about our credit rating. Our school and education records should be easy to access (and not cost a mint to obtain!). æI do not think there is any problem with access to information for everyone, to public information, not private information. For example, government departments should provide information in an open manner. Governments have been very protective of information they collect even that that deals with us privately and especially data about their operations even when the activities are not to do with security issues. Freedom of Information legislation http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/wainfo.OLD/ tries to deal with these issues and the Ombudsmen http://www.comb.gov.au/more_info/foi.html#top attempts to deal with any problems. It is obvious from the necessity for all these checks and balances that the tightrope between our desire for information and the protectiveness of government is not clear-cut. The tension between our need to protect our personal space and keep intruders at bay and the disparate needs of business, government and press which crowd closer everyday cannot be solved by pulling up the drawbridge or pouring down boiling oil (although that may seem an attractive option sometimes). We have to tread a middle ground, allowing ourselves the right to take part in modern life without being too paranoid. There has to be responsibility of governments to regulate the mavericks without impinging too much on our freedom of expression æ
Relevant Links on P.L. Duffy Resource Centre Privacy and Freedom of Information http://www.trinity.wa.edu.au/plduffyrc/subjects/te/it/privac.htm Internet
Censorship Freedom
of the Press/ Right to Privacy
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UpdatedMarch 7, 2006Rosemary HortonM.Sc; B.A. (Hons) Grad Dip Ed; Grad Dip Lib; Grad Dip Women's Studs
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