Law Commons^™

Social Data, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

As online social media grow, it is increasingly important to distinguish between the different threats to privacy that arise from the conversion of our social interactions into data. One well-recognized threat is from the robust concentrations of electronic information aggregated into colossal databases. Yet much of this same information is also consumed socially and dispersed through a user interface to hundreds, if not thousands, of peer users.

In order to distinguish relationally shared information from the threat of the electronic database, this essay identifies the massive amounts of personal information shared via the user interface of social technologies as “social …

Obscurity By Design, Woodrow Hartzog, Frederic D. Stutzman

Faculty Scholarship

Design-based solutions to confront technological privacy threats are becoming popular with regulators. However, these promising solutions have left the full potential of design untapped. With respect to online communication technologies, design-based solutions for privacy remain incomplete because they have yet to successfully address the trickiest aspect of the Internet — social interaction. This Article posits that privacy-protection strategies such as “Privacy by Design” face unique challenges with regard to social software and social technology due to their interactional nature.

This Article proposes that design-based solutions for social technologies benefit from increased attention to user interaction, with a focus on the …

An Ethical Duty To Protect One’S Own Information Privacy?, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

People freely disclose vast quantities of personal and personally identifiable information. The central question of this Meador Lecture in Morality is whether they have a moral (or ethical) obligation (or duty) to withhold information about themselves or otherwise to protect information about themselves from disclosure. Moreover, could protecting one’s own information privacy be called for by important moral virtues, as well as obligations or duties? Safeguarding others’ privacy is widely understood to be a responsibility of government, business, and individuals. The “virtue” of fairness and the “duty” or “obligation” of respect for persons arguably ground other-regarding responsibilities of confidentiality and …