scholarly journals The Right to Customization: Conceptualizing the Right to Repair for Informational Privacy

Author(s):  
Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux ◽  
Zaira Zihlmann ◽  
Kimberly Garcia ◽  
Simon Mayer
2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Edwin Baker

My thesis is simple. The right of informational privacy, the great modern achievement often attributed to the classic Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis article, “The Right to Privacy” (1890), asserts an individual's right not to have private personal information circulated. Warren and Brandeis claimed that individual dignity in a modern society requires that people be able to keep their private lives to themselves and proposed that the common law should be understood to protect this dignity by making dissemination of private information a tort. As broadly stated, this right not to have private information distributed directly conflicts with a broadly conceived freedom of speech and of the press. My claim is that, in cases of conflict, the law should reject the Warren and Brandeis innovation. Speech and press freedom should prevail; the privacy tort should be ignored. This conclusion requires a normative argument concerning the appropriate basis and status of speech freedom that this essay will not really provide but for which I have argued elsewhere. Here, instead, I will describe that theory of speech freedom, explore its implications for informational privacy, and finally suggest some reasons to think that rejection of the privacy tort should not be so troubling and is, in fact, pragmatically desirable.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-179
Author(s):  
Ciara Staunton ◽  
Rachel Adams ◽  
Dominique Anderson ◽  
Talishiea Croxton ◽  
Dorcas Kamuya ◽  
...  

Abstract The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) [No.4 of 2013] is the first comprehensive data protection regulation to be passed in South Africa and it gives effect to the right to informational privacy derived from the constitutional right to privacy It is due to come into force in 2020, and seeks to regulate the processing of personal information in South Africa, regulate the flow of personal information across South Africa’s borders, and ensure that any limitations on the right to privacy are justified and aimed at protecting other important rights and interests. Although it was not drafted with health research in mind, POPIA will have an impact on the sharing of health data for research, in particular biorepositories. It is now timely to consider the impact of POPIA on biorepositories, and the necessary changes to their access and sharing arrangements prior to POPIA coming into force.


Author(s):  
Vitalii Serohin

The paper attempts to expose the basic concepts of informational privacy reflected in Western jurisprudence, as well as to outline the author's vision of the content and scope of informational privacy, to distinguish the relevant powers from which this right consists, to reveal its place and role from the standpoint of system-structural approach. It is noted that in the modern scientific literature, dedicated to ensuring the privacy and respect for his / her privacy, clearly distinguishes two main approaches to understanding the informational advantage - broad and narrow. Proponents of the narrow approach consider the primes solely in the informational aspect, and other constituents (physical, visual, phonetic privacy, etc.) tend to relate to the content of other fundamental rights. However, one group of authors interprets information privacy as the right of the person to control their personal data, while the second group considers it more rational and efficient to consider information pricing as the right of ownership of personal data. Attempting to unite both camps of supporters of a narrow interpretation of the information front is the Restricted Access / Limited Control (RALC) theory. Proponents of the broad-based approach view information primacy as important, but only one of the many substantive elements of constitutional law in favor. At the same time, the authors' exit beyond the information sphere when considering the content of the precedence can be considered progressive and more consistent with the essence of this right and its purpose in ensuring personal freedom and autonomy. In view of the author, revealing the content of the right to privacy, it should be borne in mind that the object of this right includes several areas (aspects), in each of which a person may be in different states of privacy, and the privacy itself has certain measurements. On this basis, information is regarded by the author as an element of the constitutional right of privacy, distinguished by the aspects of privacy and the form (method) of its objectification. Unlike other aspects of privacy, the informational aspect is detached from the physical body of the individual and exists independently, and relevant information continues to exist even after the death of the individual. Therefore, even the death of a person does not make sense of the information associated with that person, and sometimes even enhances its value and significance. It is noted that unlike other aspects of the case, information privacy has no states (such as loneliness, intimacy, anonymity, etc.); it merely provides information protection for such states and does not allow them to be disclosed without the consent of the entity itself.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 831-840
Author(s):  
Josephine VAN ZEBEN ◽  
Bart A. KAMPHORST

In response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, European Union (EU) Member States adopted technological solutions aimed at mitigating the effects of the virus, as well as enforcing newly adopted public health measures. Examples include apps for disseminating information, performing self-diagnosis, enforcing home quarantine orders and aiding contact tracing. This extensive use of technology for tracking and promoting public health raises important questions regarding EU citizens’ privacy. Thus far, the discourse in this regard has predominantly revolved around data protection, the risk of surveillance and the right to control access over one’s personal information (informational privacy). In light of the push towards a more unified approach to mitigating the current pandemic and future health crises through a European Health Union (EHU), we consider a different dimension of privacy that may be at risk when employing technology for public health, namely the right to non-interference with one’s decisions (decisional privacy). In particular, this article focuses on whether the advances in health-related persuasive technology, together with a more general movement towards “nudging” as an individual and public health tool, will require EU legislation to further protect decisional privacy by regulating “hypernudging” technologies and to guide the EHU in coordinating public health measures that utilise these technologies in a privacy-preserving way.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelia Tamo-Larrieux ◽  
Zaira Zihlmann ◽  
Kimberly Garcia ◽  
Simon Mayer

Using a digital service is often framed in a binary way: Either one agrees to the service provider's data processing practices, and is granted access to the service, or one does not, and is denied the service. Many scholars have lamented these ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ situations, as this goes against the ideals of data protection law. To address this inadequacy, computer scientists and legal scholars have tried to come up with approaches to enable more privacy-friendly products and services. In this article, we call for a right to customize the processing of user data. Our arguments build upon technology-driven approaches as well as on the ideals of privacy by design and the now codified data protection by design and default norm within the General Data Protection Regulation. In addition, we draw upon the right to repair that is propagated to empower consumers and enable a more circular economy. We propose two technologically-oriented approaches, termed ‘variants’ and ‘alternatives’ that could enable the technical implementation of a right to customization. We posit that these approaches cannot be demanded without limitation, and that restrictions will depend on how reasonable a customization demand is.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 115 ◽  
Author(s):  
McKay Cunningham

The disparities inherent in various national privacy laws have come into sharper contrast as access to information grows and formerly domestic markets become international. Information flow does not adhere to national boundary lines. Increasingly, laws that seek to protect informational privacy do not either. The European Union took a bold approach by limiting access to its markets for those who failed to observe its strict law designed to protect personal information. The 1995 Directive (and 2014 Regulatory Amendment) embody this approach as they: (1) broadly define personal information; (2) broadly define those who process and control personal information; (3) restrict transfer of personal information to those who cannot demonstrate compliance. Tellingly, the Directive does not limit its scope to certain industries or practices, but requires privacy controls across the board, regardless of whether the processor is a healthcare provider, pastry chef or girl scout. To many, the Directive has failed. While the global trend toward adopting laws similar to the Directive suggests that many States value privacy rights, commentators and empirical studies reveal significant shortcomings. The Directive outlaws harmless activities while allowing exceptions that threaten to swallow the rule. It is simultaneously over-inclusive and under-inclusive. National governments enjoy wide latitude to collect and use personal information under the guise of national security. Perhaps more concerning, technology continues to leapfrog. Information privacy is made continually more difficult with each new “app” and innovation. The Internet of Things is more probable than speculative. Radio-frequency identification is a predicate to computer identification and assimilation of everyday physical objects, enabling the use of these objects to be monitored and inventoried by computers. Tagging and monitoring objects could similarly be accomplished by other technologies like near field communication, barcodes, QR codes and digital watermarking, raising the legitimate argument that informational privacy—at least as envisioned in the 1995 Directive’s absolute terms—is impossible. Informational privacy cannot be accomplished by declaring it a fundamental right and outlawing all processing of personal information. To legally realise and enforce a privacy right in personal information, incremental, graduated, and practical legislation better achieve the goal than sweeping proclamations that have applications to actions unrelated to the harms associated with the absence of the right. With information privacy in particular, a capacious claim of right to all personal information undermines legal enforcement because the harms attending lack of privacy are too often ill-defined and misunderstood. As a result, legal realization of a claimed privacy right in the Age of Information should proceed incrementally and begin with the industries, practices, and processes that cause the most harm by flouting informational privacy. Data mining and data aggregation industries, for example, collect, aggregate and resell personal information without express consent. A targeted prohibition of this industry would reduce financial incentives of the most conspicuous violators and alleviate some of the most egregious privacy infractions. A graduated legal scheme also reduces undue and overbroad Internet regulation. While the right to privacy has been recognised and legally supported in one way or another for centuries, it has not faced the emerging and countervailing Age of Information until now. Current omnibus international legislation reflects the impossibility of legally protecting all privacy in the Age of Information; it also illustrates the need for a refined and practical legal scheme that gradually and directly targets the harms associated with privacy violations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-218
Author(s):  
Chris Hunt ◽  
Micah Rankin

The Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision in R. v. Spencer is likely to become a landmark decision on informational privacy. Spencer addressed the issue of whether an Internet user charged with possession and distribution of child pornography had a Charter-protected privacy interest in his Internet subscriber information. A unanimous Supreme Court answered this question in the affirmative, primarily because such information could lead to the identification of a user carrying out intimate or sensitive activities in circumstances where the user would believe that his or her activities would be carried out anonymously. The immediate practical consequence of Spencer is that police will henceforth be required to obtain prior judicial authorization before requesting a person’s Internet subscriber information—a holding that squarely contradicts a number of recent appellate court decisions. In this comment, the authors argue that Spencer is likely to have a significant, and possibly transformative, impact on section 8 jurisprudence. In their view, the Court’s recognition of “anonymity” as an independent value underlying section 8 of the Charter leads to a more robust account of privacy—an account that is more consistent with theoretical approaches to the concept. The authors argue that the recognition of a right to anonymity may also serve to support the rule of law by refocusing the section 8 analysis on unwanted scrutiny by the state. In addition, an emphasis on the right to anonymity may lead to a diminished role for the analytical device known as the “biographical core”. The authors conclude their comment with a discussion of the Court’s decision to admit the impugned evidence under section 24(2) of the Charter, arguing that the Court placed too much emphasis on the legal uncertainty surrounding the search.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-96
Author(s):  
Tetiana Korshun

The main thesis of the article is that informational privacy slows down the progress in many areas of science and social development. Current tendencies to open government lead us to construct a fully transparent society. And we should be ready to organize our public and private life in the absence of the informational privacy, including the most sensible areas. This transformation will influence almost every sphere of our social life. Increasing the level of tolerance, more security for private businesses, cost savings for states and individuals, the new wave in the development of the electronic services from governments and corporations, more incentives for law-changing process, the next level of social trust are the core of the transparent society after the abolition of the right to the informational privacy. But there are many more consequences that require further detailed study and research.


Author(s):  
J. Anthony VanDuzer

SummaryRecently, there has been a proliferation of international agreements imposing minimum standards on states in respect of their treatment of foreign investors and allowing investors to initiate dispute settlement proceedings where a state violates these standards. Of greatest significance to Canada is Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which provides both standards for state behaviour and the right to initiate binding arbitration. Since 1996, four cases have been brought under Chapter 11. This note describes the Chapter 11 process and suggests some of the issues that may arise as it is increasingly resorted to by investors.


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