Information privacy: protecting freedom and individual autonomy

Lesya V. Ches­noko­va
Dos­toyevsky Omsk State Uni­ver­si­ty

Infor­ma­tion pri­va­cy: pro­tect­ing free­dom and indi­vid­ual auton­o­my

Abstract. The arti­cle exam­ines the individual’s right to infor­ma­tion pri­va­cy as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a non-pub­lic area of life. It is argued that a per­son, being a vul­ner­a­ble crea­ture, feels the need for secre­cy, close­ness and opac­i­ty of his or her per­son­al­i­ty. The right to infor­ma­tion pri­va­cy does not mean com­plete con­ceal­ment of pri­vate life, but the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reg­u­lat­ing access, when indi­vid­u­als can choose whom, when and to what extent to reveal the details of their lives. This pre­sup­pos­es both a per­son who feels him or her­self to be an autonomous per­son and a soci­ety that respects his or her rights and free­doms. There is a duty of restraint and tact, which pro­hibits vio­lat­ing some­one else’s pri­va­cy. As one of the aspects of pri­va­cy, in addi­tion to the invi­o­la­bil­i­ty of the body and home, the human right to infor­ma­tion pro­tec­tion is rec­og­nized. The the­o­ret­i­cal foun­da­tion of the right to pri­va­cy is the phi­los­o­phy of lib­er­al­ism, which pro­tects the indi­vid­ual from unwant­ed inter­fer­ence from the state and soci­ety. The need for pri­vate space has evolved in human his­to­ry along with the growth of indi­vid­u­al­ism. Cur­rent­ly, the right to infor­ma­tion pri­va­cy is gain­ing spe­cial rel­e­vance in con­nec­tion with the devel­op­ment of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies that allow col­lect­ing, stor­ing and pro­cess­ing large amounts of data. As a result, a per­son, on the one hand, does not know who, when and for what pur­pose col­lects his or her data, and, on the oth­er hand, he or she often vol­un­tar­i­ly, in con­nec­tion with the need for social recog­ni­tion, leaves infor­ma­tion about him or her­self on social net­works. As a result of such actions, the loss of con­trol over per­son­al infor­ma­tion can lead to unde­sir­able con­se­quences.

Key­words: infor­ma­tion pri­va­cy, non-trans­paren­cy of infor­ma­tion, secre­cy, free­dom, per­son­al­i­ty auton­o­my, per­son­al bound­aries

DOI: 10.32326/2618–9267–2021–4–2–145–157

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