The Future of Internet Privacy

Changing expectations must be considered in future Internet privacy discussions.

Most Internet users are familiar with some of the ways privacy can be comprised online, keeping aware of the ways in which personal information can be gleaned from databases, unsecured websites and spyware and keystroke loggers that broadcast private information to potential scammers. However, the whole of Internet privacy encompasses many more privacy issues than just identity.

Basics

The Electronic Privacy Information Center states that current notions of privacy are based on two concepts: obscurity and confidentiality. The latter is of concern to law-makers and activists, as the former can be implemented easily using current technologies, including using multiple email addresses, blocking pages from being included in search engines and using multiple IP addresses. Confidentiality is harder to obtain, however, as more and more personal data is stored in the "cloud," radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips are built into credit cards and transportation passes and a generation grows up less inhibited about sharing personal information in social networks and in blogs.

Social Media

The use of social media is of special note in any discussion of Internet privacy and its future. Even barebones profiles can expose personal information about the user, including their religion, sexuality, political and social affiliations and friends. Annie I. Antón, director of ThePrivacyPlace.org, explains that the majority of users, even after the issue's prominence in the media, do not know that most social media sites' privacy settings are "opt-in," requiring manual set-up.

Legal Issues

Governments and policymakers have struggled, in the United States and the European Union, with how to legislate Internet privacy in a way that balances the rights of their citizens and national security. University of California lawyer Philip J. Weiser states that "Ultimately, the old models of regulation ... are doomed to fail in a dynamic environment." The future of Internet privacy, however, is dependent not only on creating new types of legislation, but also taking into account how young people growing up with the Internet view the concept of privacy.

Changing Perceptions

Writer Emily Nussbaum interviewed young Internet users for a "New York Magazine" article and found that, overall, the interviewees believed "...that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion. Your life is being lived in public, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not." Because of this underlying belief, young users are less inhibited about posting -- and archiving -- details of their lives online. Nussbaum isolated several themes in how young people have integrated Internet transparency into their daily lives, including the idea that the individual is responsible for his own "PR," having a "thicker skin" regarding web interactions, and that a searchable record of their lives is not, by definition, at odds with the idea of privacy. These changing ideas about what is reasonable to expect, in terms of privacy, are ones that must eventually come to the forefront of future privacy discussions.

References

• "New York Magazine"; Say Everything; Emily Nussbaum
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: Privacy
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever; Andrew J. Blumberg, et al; August 2009
• Elon University School of Communications: The Future of Privacy and the Internet
• University of California, Davis Law Review; The Future of Internet Regulation; Philip J. Weiser