Privacy Concerns

While I think it is important to discuss and understand privacy, particularly for the sake of literacy, I left Thursday's discussion asking myself 'so what?' How does privacy affect me on the long run, and if I come into to a situation where I feel as though my privacy has been violated, what will I do about it? The fact of the matter is, legal action seems to be our only real recourse when it comes to privacy violations. In fact, each of us has probably found ourselves in more than one situation in which we would be within our rights to sue, but we don't because except for the more extreme commodity-related cases, there would be seemingly no point.

This is why I brought up the idea of some sort of 'privacy council.' While one could argue that the law and the judicial system serve the function I posited, privacy issues seem to dance on both sides of the line between legal and personal matters. As such, it would seem to me to make some sense to at least form a group that could address issues. Dan Solove's Understanding Privacy seems to treat the issue as such a community-based one that it makes sense to have a community body that can at least say 'from my non-binding survey, it seems that we, in general find X to be private, so be aware when X comes into your interactions with others.'

Perhaps the results would be as ineffective as our judicial system. However, it seems to me that problems regarding privacy are not solved by simply talking about them, and mostly litigious action seems too extreme. I'm reminded of Jason Fortuny who posted fake ads on Craigslist. These ads were very graphic, requesting extreme sexual acts. Many responded, and Fortuny posted their information online for all to see.

There's a pretty clear legal case in this instance. Fortuny broke many laws in attempting to pull this off. Indeed, as of a year ago, there were two lawsuits pending against him. However, while legal recourse may make sense for someone whose livelihood was hurt by this person, that action is going to do nothing to prevent others from falling into similar traps. It seems to me that it makes sense to have a body of publicly sanctioned figures who can at least make people aware of the potential for violations or miscarriages of privacy. This group could equally be responsible for taking the temperature of a group in regards to controversial issues.

It would be difficult to make any actions this group took legally binding, and indeed it would probably be a mistake to do so. After all, the law should be saved for the most extreme cases. But most of the time the situation isn't so dire, it simply becomes that way because both perpetrator and victim lack a proper understanding of their actions. If we continue to advance technologically we're going to continue to create opportunities for our personal information to slip through the cracks. Doesn't it make sense to have someone to point out the dangers to those who don't know any better?