I think in an ‘automated’ context (such as the internet), other problems arise which are not so evident in the physical world: repetition or degree, and persistence and reach.
For example, it has been (speciously) argued that * if I allow myself to appear in someone’s photo when we are both in a public place (and I do), then I don’t mind having my photo taken in public, so it’s not a privacy concern, so I can be monitored 24x7 by public video cameras, or be followed by someone with a video camera. * if I allow someone to see what I am buying at the cash register in a store (and I do), then it’s not a privacy concern to track my purchases, so a complete record of all my purchases can be assmebled and kept. * if I allow people to observe (and implicitly remember) something, it’s also fine for a computer to observe and record that * if I allow people to report on something they learned, to others, it’s OK for computers to share the data with others also The first two concern ‘degree’ – something that is ‘rare’ and isolated is not a privacy concern, whereas something that is persistent and continuous may well be. The second two concern ‘reach’ in space and time: people forget, and they don’t spread information very far, and those told also forget: the data fades away. Computers do not ‘forget’, and the data can be spread far and wide. Now, maybe rare events and finite propagation (in space and time) ARE privacy issues, but nigglingly small and not to be worried about, but I am not sure that’s true. “Was your privacy violated when the guy behind you noticed you bought a Mars bar?” would usually get the answer “no”, I think, not “yes, but to an insignificant degree”. David Singer Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc. _______________________________________________ ietf-privacy mailing list [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-privacy
