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What theoretical frameworks have been proposed to mediate the possible mutual exclusivity of privacy and free knowledge? Question
From what conceptual framework could one derive self-consistent ethical principles about how to distinguish between situations in which people’s right to privacy enables them to choose what data other people can have about them, vs. situations in which the freedom to discover, retain, and share knowledge would protect the right to store certain data about a person, group of persons, or the world?
1 answer
I think utilitarianism would provide an answer to this.
Knowledge like mathematical theorems, scientific findings, folklore and literature poses hardly any threat to privacy while the benefit of freely sharing it is vast.
Knowledge like someone's private anatomy, passwords to their bank account, their embarrassing crush in high school doesn't really benefit society in a meaningful way. It can also cause significant harm.
There are some borderline cases:
- Knowledge of a government's inner workings benefits society, but also provides an intelligence advantage for its adversaries. The resolution depends on how exactly you balance the risk of being harmed by the state itself vs. risk of being harmed by enemies of the state.
- Knowledge of a company's dealings harms the privacy of the company (if it is considered a person) as well as its proprietors, but helps reduce harmful business practices. The resolution depends on how exactly you balance the risk of harm from bad businesses vs. risk of harm to legitimate businesses.
- Knowledge about a criminal can help catch them and prevent crimes. But it harms the privacy of anyone who is declared a criminal. The resolution depends on whether you are more concerned with harm from the legal system unfairly declaring people criminals vs. harm from the criminals committing crimes.
It's interesting that many places use a sliding scale, where for example greater crimes are considered to warrant lesser privacy.
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