  |
|
Earlier this week, boalt.org hosted Daniel J. Solove, law professor at George Washington University, who talked about his fantastic new book The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age. His talk and his book come at an opportune time--on the heels of problems with ChoicePoint and other commercial databrokers. The book is a must-read!
Prof. Solove's book identifyies the "other you"--the digital you--that lives through your personal information inside of countless commercial databases, databases maintained by companies that you may not have heard of, but that certainly have heard of you. Why should you be concerned about this digital person? The information in these databases is used all the time to make decisions about you--it is used to determine your credit rating, how you might vote, whether you can get a credit card, whether you can get a job, what advertising should be sent to you, and even whether a retailer or business wants to do business with you. Wouldn't you like to have a say in this? ...If not to completely control what information is included, or how that information is used, but at least to make sure the information is correct? Sorry. No dice.
In The Digital Person, Prof. Solove argues that any hope of remedying this situation must begin with an overhaul of the way in which we conceptualize the problem. Outmoded metaphors used to describe the nature of privacy and privacy violations can, according to Solove, inhibit effective laws which intended to remedy the particularized problems presented by the proliferation of commercial databases of personal information. Such metaphors mischaracterize both the activities of the bad actors and the nature of the harms they cause.
Commonly invoked, of course, is Orwell's image from 1984: "Big Brother"--a central authoritarian power that aims to control, oppress, and dominate the people through constant conspicuous surveillance. The harms envisioned here are inhibition and self-censorship due to the surveillance. Solove argues that this metaphor is inaccurate because in today's world, the digital person is constructed by businesses who want to collect information as inconspicuously as possible, for the ultimate purpose of getting you to buy more stuff. Solove presents an alternate source of metaphor, more appropriate to this situation--Kafka's The Trial. Josehp K.'s struggle with an invisible bureaucracy replicates the helplessness, vulnerability, and frustration that many experience when they discover false information in a commercial data broker's file, or worse, are rejected from a job or for reasons unknown to them.
Go read The Digital Person! The book includes a comprehensive description of the developments in commercial collection of personal information, a history of privacy regulations, more analysis of the 1984 and The Trial metaphors, and proposed legal solutions! You can also watch video of Prof. Solove's talk, linked from boalt.org's speakers page under 2005, Daniel J. Solove.
Posted by Tara Wheatland at March 10, 2005 04:24 PM | TrackBack