Definition Essay On Privacy

You hear the word tousled around in mainstream media, work, and even within your own personal endeavors: privacy. Privacy is a rather subjective terms sometimes, but it’s typically defined as a person’s right to be left alone or the freedom from infiltration. However, in an age of ever emerging technologies, the definition of privacy has become much broader. Not only do some individuals wish to protect their personal privacy, but now they must take their digital privacy into consideration and protect it as well. But why is it so important? Where do we get privacy rights? Why does the Internet all of a sudden change our previous notions of privacy? Let’s explore the different ideals of privacy and see if we can clarify what has become somewhat

For a moment, take the time to think to yourself ‘what if everything about me was exposed?’ Even though someone may not necessarily have something to hide, it is quite debilitating to think of every aspect of your life being exposed to everyone and anyone. Not only is it horribly invasive, but in the wrong hands it could quickly become dangerous and leave a victim subject to abuse. With that being said, maintaining one’s privacy allows people to form relationships ranging from work relationships to intimate relationships, and everything in between. When two or more people are in a relationship, trust is escalated when they are ensured the others will keep information private. This form of privacy is a precondition for many types of relationships between two or more people. Constantly being observed and having information available to anyone at their own discretion would seriously hinder any type of relationship. In addition, privacy allows individuals to be autonomous and live as he or she wishes to. However, again, this ties in very closely to relationships. If privacy is invaded and exposed, individuals lose their sense of autonomy and where they stand relative to society. Taking this idea of autonomy, we can now zoom out and take a look at the larger picture. Autonomy is part of having basic human dignity, in that individuals want to have value and worth within themselves.

The business decides to extract emails that “X” sent during his career as their due diligence to protect themselves in this lawsuit. Should “X” expect the business to protect his privacy and not extract his emails? In a perfect scenario, yes. However, realistically speaking that’s probably not going to happen. Emails are typically stored in a server for a period of time due to compliance protocols in the event of an audit. Presuming that “X” was given a proper use form to use work computers, “X” should know that anything done/transmitted/worked on, etc. belongs to the business. However, what if “X” was using his own personal computer? This gets a little more complicated, however the underlying notion doesn’t change. Yes, “X” used his own personal computer to send/receive emails. However, “X” used the company software/email server to send/retrieve emails. Again, this is still a company asset and falls within the proper use of company property. The only thing that would really alter this analysis is if “X” used his own personal computer and his own personal email account (i.e., Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) during his free time on lunch. At that point, yes “X” is using their Internet to transmit this data, however there is no probably cause for the company to sniff traffic unless there is reasonable suspicion to do so. In this example