Beyond Accountability, the Return to Privacy?

Raphaël Gellert and Serge Gutwirth

Chapter 12 in Managing Privacy through Accountability, 2012, pp 261-283 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract There is great confusion as to the exact meaning of privacy. As Solove puts it, privacy is a concept in disarray. It is a sweeping concept and nobody can articulate what it means.2 In this respect,3 privacy has successively been conceptualised in terms of ‘right to be let alone’,4 control over personal information,5 the construction of one’s identity,6 informational self-determination,7 or contextual integrity.8 What clearly emerges from these attempted conceptualisations of privacy is that privacy is a multidimensional, multi-faceted concept, the complexity of which is therefore hard to grasp within a single conceptual setting. Some do argue that privacy should not be defined at all, since such definition would bear the risk of limiting and ‘freezing’ its meaning and effects (especially in the legal field).9 Indeed, as Solove points out, some theories are too narrow (solely focusing on information, or access to the self), others are too broad (e.g., the right to be let alone, which is an emanation of personhood), whereas others are both too broad and too narrow at times.10

Keywords: Personal Data; Data Protection; European Citizen; Data Protection Directive; Data Protection Legislation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-03222-5_13

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137032225_13

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