Rethink Privacy!

Privacy is a key factor for individual and social well-being. In the digital age, ubiquitous data processing practices by businesses and government agencies and the abundant digital traces we knowingly or unknowingly leave behind affect privacy in various ways with consequences for individuals and society. To ensure that the processing of digital traces ultimately benefits individuals and society, we launch a research project that rethinks privacy with a synergetic combination of four perspectives: Philosophy, communication studies, law, and technology.

This research project is structured in three parts. In the first part – Deconstructing Privacy – the project explores the definitions, ascriptions, perceptions, and concepts of privacy as well as existing mechanisms to protect it. Upon these findings, the second part – Reshaping Privacy – starts out on the presumption that the processing of digital traces can be both beneficial and harmful, and that current regulatory and technical attempts have their limitations to successfully fight the actual harms, thereby curtailing important benefits. We explore three (potential) harms that are particularly important: manipulation, discrimination, and chilling effects. By analyzing these harms we develop a better understanding of how they affect individuals, groups, and society at large. In the third part – Governing Privacy – all disciplines jointly devise governance arrangements that minimize the harms caused by the processing of digital traces while allowing the benefits to come to fruition. Based on a comparison of the governance recommendations for the three harms, we ultimately aim to draw up the foundations for a new governance framework for privacy in the digital age.