Next SectionChallenges of the Information Society
The Western intellectual tradition establishes a set of individual rights and duties in society. It focuses on an individual and his or her society's ends. Technology effects the means by which a society can achieve its ends. The technology of the moment is information technology, a special tool that is used both to intrude into people's private space and also to protect it. It serves as the driving force of an evolving "info-culture."
"We are surrounded by new machines, new devices, new technologies that let us - or make us - deal with more information than ever before. We are also surrounded by new economic and social and cultural systems which support and make possible these machines, and which, in turn, are supported by them. Together our information culture and our information machines shape the way we live, work and play, and change the way we think about the world around us. No aspect of our lives remains untouched." [Lubar, 1993, p. 3]
Especially intrusive are the new surveillance technologies. The second half of the twentieth century has been witness to the development and use of a host of very effective, often surreptitious, such technologies: Video cameras on the walls or behind mirrors, miniature cameras installed in pens, satellite or aerial cameras above, hidden microphones, invisible wire tapping devices, telephone bugging devices, electronic dishes that can overhear conversations at a great distance, "truth serums," polygraphs, breath analyzers, electronic anklets, voice-stress analyzers, and brain wave analyzers. These are just a few of the many instruments that have been devised to correct personal information. Add to this a wide assortment of technologies that are used more openly such as scanners, card readers, cash registers, teller's machines, and sensors of various types.
All of these technologies collect personal information electronically and, for the most part, digitized it; that is, they reduce it to a string of ones and zeros. The resulting bits and bites of information are then readily categorized, stored in databases, extracted, and communicated via wide area telecommunications or local area networks. This makes the availability of personal information almost ubiquitous. Once in this electronic form bits can flow anywhere, anytime they are requested, as long as some form of connectivity is established.
As our society becomes increasingly networked many more connections are being made. Disparate digital content is being joined together by means of networks of computers - ranging from large supercomputers to personal computers, including chips embedded in automobiles, appliances and the like -and by means of far flung, powerful communications devices. A new economy is being formed. This new economy is a "networked economy with deep, rich interconnections within and between organizations and institutions." Tapscott, 199, p. 69) It is a real-time economy with economic transactions occurring frequently at the speed of light. Moreover, due to technological innovation the cost per bit of performing these functions is declining rapidly. All of this means that personal information can be easily collected, stored, combined and processed in a variety of ways, and, once in hand, it can be rapidly disseminated almost anywhere in the world.
The cultural values which encouraged the development of these technologies are also those which guide its use. In our society people place considerable value on information, especially information about other people. They use it to conduct their daily affairs. Some people are actively titillated by obtaining and viewing personal information. Consequently many third parties continually and actively probe for more and more personal information. This probing is technologically feasible and often quite easy to do. The extensive, web like nature of the Solzhenitsyn threats that connect us to each other permit it. But this probing can lead to abuses.
Some of these abuses may be minor, as reporter Peter Lewis describes:
"Everyday we make bargains of convenience, trading little bits of our privacy for a reduction of hassles. Should we care? Many people seem to think not. And yet, do we behave differently from how we might otherwise, knowing that we are under almost continuous surveillance of one sort or another?
For most people, maybe this is the real issue about privacy in the information age. Perhaps we were so intent on avoiding Orwell's totalitarian Big Brother that we did not notice the arrival of millions of tattletale busybodies."[Peter Lewis, Op Lit, p. Dl]
All of this can add up to something more significant, however. Jeffrey Rothfeder, a former editor for Business Week, observes "people can't be trusted with information about each other; they'll do harm with it."[Rothfeder, 1992, p23] Rothfeder's observation that personal information in the hands of third parties can do harm raises ethical questions on at least two grounds. On consequentialist grounds it violates the principle that no use of information is morally justifiable if its use causes more harm to individuals than good. On deontological grounds it violates the principle that no use of information is morally justifiable if it causes any avoidable harm whatsoever. Protecting against these violations requires not only a privacy policy but also a substantive means to enforce it.
To summarize: Western heritage establishes a right to privacy. But, the information age is challenging society's ability to respect it. The use of information technology poses a major threat to gaining compliance among third parties with respect to privacy rights.
These two conflicting trends meet in the institutional structures that society creates to carry out its work, both in the role of second, third, and fourth parties. This is to say that personal information does not reside in an amorphous ether and merely float throughout a society. It is handled by that society's decision structures.