Rethinking the Concept of Privacy in the Internet Age of Transparency

Abstract

Despite constant efforts by various scholars to define the meaning of privacy, privacy has remained to be a concept as elusive as ever. Some say that we need to note its unique ethnographic content, that the meaning of privacy varies from society to society. Others advise that it is perhaps best to identify what specific interests of the individual we think the law ought to protect. Following the above logic, one finds that the Continental Europe grounds the concept of privacy in human dignity. The English holds dear to their concept of breach of confidence, which has a close affiliation with property rights, while the Americans are concerned with guarding against intrusion by the state. Privacy seems have survived well in each beholding state.

Yet the Internet Age has beckoned us to re-examine privacy as a concept when geographical and ethnographical differences are no longer a valid concern. One particular challenge is the rise of citizen participatory journalism in the Internet, which every Internet user can literally be a reporter and add his story onto the Internet news. This would mean our daily life may be under the minute scrutiny of our neighbours, any passerby on the street, or anyone we may have met. Though our stories may take place in the public, little are we prepared that our movements and gestures will be captured by modern technology at any moment and later to be broadcast on the Internet for a public trial of millions to watch and to criticize. For instance, in 2005, The Dog Poop Girl story featured a South Korea University student who refused to clean up the feces of her dog in a subway compartment was posted on the Internet. The story soon hit the national headlines and even the Washington Post. The Internet users were not merely content to expose her wrongful deeds. They hunted her down, and exposed her personal data. Facing mounting public pressure, the girl eventually resigned from her university. Indisputably, the act took place in public, that it was a disgraceful act, that the violators were not members of the organized state force or the prying paparazzi but has the shaming and monitoring power of the Internet gone too far? Similar stories involving like issues are reported elsewhere.

In the proposed paper, drawing on existing literature, I will examine the concept of privacy in the growing age of Internet policing by citizen-reporters.