Page 11 - Privacy in a Cyber Age Policy and Practice

x PREFACE

Computer security is obviously a major privacy concern, given that
information is, by and large, no longer stored in drawers, files, and ledgers,
but rather in databases that can be accessed electronically from anywhere
in the world. Therefore, the more strongly this information is protected,
all other things being equal, the more strongly privacy is protected. One
would expect that the private sector would be keen to protect its databases
after experiencing raids by criminals, foreign agents, and hackers that have
led to loss of customers’ trust and business and have damaged American
security. However, as spelled out in Chapter 6, there are ideological and
pragmatic reasons the private sector has been slow to adopt the necessary
privacy-protecting security measures. The government has responded by
focusing on protecting its own computers and networks. However, we shall
see that here too the private and public sectors are converging. It is not
possible to effectively protect one without achieving a similar level of pro-
tection in the other.
The transposition of information from a paper-locked world to a digi-
tal one, in which information is electronically freed—a major factor and
marker of the advent of the cyber age—is the source of both benefits and
losses for individuals and society. To curb the losses, a new individual right
has been minted: the right to be forgotten. The argument is that by making
it much easier to find out about people’s pasts, the cyber age prevents peo-
ple from having second chances. Therefore some have suggested that peo-
ple should have a right to erase information about their previous conduct
from databases kept by corporations. Chapter 8 explores this suggestion.
We shall see that the radical version of this proposal would cause much
more harm than good, and its moderate version raises numerous questions
that so far remain unanswered.
The right to be forgotten points to a much greater issue: the question of
where the balance between individual rights and the common good lies.
Clearly, if all “old” information is erased, it would be easier, for instance,
for sex offenders to gain jobs at kindergartens. On the other hand, if any-
one who smoked a joint as a teenager and was caught is treated—for life—
as someone who “has a record,” both society and these people would be
damaged. Therefore, the issue of balance arises. How far should society tilt
toward protecting privacy and other individual rights, and how far should
society advance the common good, especially security, public safety, and
public health? (For a discussion of this balance as it applies to privacy and
security, see Chapter 7.)
This issue is first explored in general terms, drawing on the communi-
tarian philosophy that underlies all the parts of this volume. Communitari-
anism is a body of thought that focuses on the social and moral foundations
of society, ranging from small local communities to the nascent global one.