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The Dao Of Privacy, Lara A. Ballard

Lara A Ballard

It is widely believed in some Western circles that a single multilateral human rights treaty, based largely on European models for data protection, can standardize a right to privacy on a global basis. It is also widely believed that East Asia has no real tradition of privacy. Both of these beliefs are mistaken. This Article explores the underlying philosophical assumptions beneath Western concepts of privacy that currently prevail on both sides of the Atlantic, by examining privacy through the lens of classical Daoism and the Northeast Asian philosophical tradition. Taking a cue from Professor Julie Cohen’s Configuring the Networked Self, …