(HBSN) Privacy

Consider the recent debate over whether a newspaper violated the privacy rights of gun owners by publishing a map comprised of information gleaned from public records. The situation left many scratching their heads. After all, how can public records be considered private? What obscurity draws our attention to, is that while the records were accessible to any member of the public prior to the rise of big data, more effort was required to obtain, aggregate, and publish them. In that prior context, technological constraints implicitly protected privacy interests.

The Graph would wrench these scattered showings of support from the various corners of Facebook into a composite profile that presents both obscurity and accuracy concerns.

But is it really wise to presume Facebook's financial interests align with the user interest in maintaining obscurity?

Privacy should have a deeper purpose than the one ascribed to it by those who treat it as a currency to be traded for innovation, which in many circumstances seems to actually mean corporate interests.

Privacy is shorthand for breathing room to engage in the process of ... self-development."

It is better understood as an important buffer that gives us space to develop an identity that is somewhat separate from the surveillance, judgment, and values of our society and culture