Next SectionThe Language of Privacy
While there are thousands of specific possibilities, the concept of privacy, in general, centers around relationships between four discernible parties. The first party is the individual. As argued above, within the norms of a given society each member has a prima facie right to establish his or her own zone of inaccessibility within which he or she is to be left alone and within which his or her rights to autonomy are respected. Privacy in this context refers both to physical exclusion and to the protection of personal information.
Personal information, however, is essential for the making of a large number of social decisions that affect an individual's life including the delivery of medical, legal and governmental services and the ability to participate in buying and selling of economic goods. So, in some cases the first party must make a bargain with a second party. He or she shares personal information with selected second parties in order to receive the benefits that sharing permits.
The second party consists of those others in the society to whom the first party provides specific, limited personal information in return for services or for the sake of creating or sustaining a personal relationship. This second party may be an individual, a group or an institution. An assumed principle purpose of the second party is to maintain or enhance the individual's well being.
The third party consists of all of the other members of the society who are part of the second party. They are to be excluded from receiving the personal information communicated to the second party. The exchange of personal information between a second party and any member of the third party should be blocked. These third parties either engage in irrelevant activities or, at worst, have evil intentions with respect to the first party.
Finally the first party also has an additional requirement imposed on it. Every society requires that some of each individual's personal information be made public or shared with society's government or authorities. A society's social contract dictates this although each culture finds somewhat different answers as to how these bargains are to be fulfilled. The "public" then is the fourth party and consists of all members of the society as a collective. It includes all of the institutions and activities the people collectively use to conduct their affairs, including government, political institutions and the media.
The privacy problem may now be summarized as follows: (1) Certain personal information should reside with the individual, i.e. the first party, alone. (2) Certain personal information is so important for the functioning of society as a whole that it must be communicated to the fourth party or its agents. In this case social needs trump private rights or desires (3)Certain personal information may be communicated to the second party in return for services and this information should be positively excluded from the third party. The guiding moral principles in this last case are privilege and informed consent. This statement of the privacy problem helps to identify the rights and duties and responsibilities which attend each of these four parties.