Privacy As Virtue: Moving Beyond the Individual in the Age of Big Data
di
Bart Van der Sloot
(Autore) - Intersentia, 2017
Privacy as Virtue discusses whether a rights-based approach to privacy
regulation still suffices to address the challenges triggered by new
data processing techniques, such as Big Data and mass surveillance. A
rights-based approach generally grants subjective rights to individuals
to protect their personal interests. However, large-scale data
processing techniques often transcend the individual and their
interests. Virtue ethics is used to reflect on this problem and open up
new ways of thinking. A virtuous agent not only respects the rights and
interests of others, but also has a broader duty to act in the most
careful, just, and temperate way. This applies to citizens, to companies
such as Apple, Google, and Facebook, and to governmental organizations
that are involved with large scale data processing. The author develops a
three-layered model for privacy regulation in the Big Data era. The
first layer consists of minimum obligations that are independent of
individual interests and rights. Virtuous agents have to respect the
procedural pre-conditions for the exercise of power. The second layer
echoes the current paradigm, the respect for individual rights and
interests. While the third layer is the obligation of aspiration: a
virtuous agent designs the data process in such a way that human
flourishing, equality, and individual freedom are promoted. (Series:
School of Human Rights Research, Vol. 81) [Subject: Ethics, Human Rights
Law]