Visions of Privacy

As the world moves into the twenty-first century, cellular systems, high-density data storage, and the Internet are but a few of the new technologies that promise great advances in productivity and improvements in the quality of life. Yet these new technologies also threaten personal privacy. A surveillance society, in which the individual has little control over personal information, may be the logical result of deregulation, globalization, and a mass data-processing capacity. Consumers report increasing concern over erosion of personal privacy even as they volunteer personal information in exchange for coupons, catalogues, and credit. What kind of privacy future are we facing? In Visions of Privacy: Policy Choices for the Digital Age, some of the most prominent international theorists and practitioners in the field explore the impact of evolving technology on private citizens. The authors critically probe market, ethical, global, regulatory and advocacy issues, as each answers the question, 'How can we develop privacy solutions equal to the surveillance challenges of the future?'