The role of privacy concerns in the sharing economy

Internet-mediated sharing is growing quickly. Millions of users around the world share personal services and possessions with others ? often complete strangers. Shared goods can amount to substantial financial and immaterial value. Despite this, little research has investigated privacy in the sharing economy. To fill this gap, we examine the sharing–privacy nexus by exploring the privacy threats associated with Internet-mediated sharing. Given the popularity of sharing services, users seem quite willing to share goods and services despite the compounded informational and physical privacy threats associated with such sharing. We develop and test a framework for analyzing the effect of privacy concerns on sharing that considers institutional and social privacy threats, trust and social-hedonic as well as monetary motives.     

Closed Circuits of Interaction?

Are CCTV images of such evidential strength that they speak for themselves? If not, then for whom do they speak? CCTV cameras form a growing presence in Britain's high streets. There are estimated to be 2.5 million cameras in operation in Britain, there is an increase in legislation relating to cameras and there is increasing concern amongst civil liberties groups about cameras' effects. Claims are frequently made such as 'if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about' and 'CCTV evidence is clear to see.' These claims depend upon acceptance of the proposal that CCTV images are simply left to speak for themselves and that CCTV staff do little interpretative work. However, to investigate these claims, we need to ask: How do CCTV systems actually operate in practice. How are identities for CCTV images made 'clear', accounted for and mobilized? What work is done to promote the notion that we have nothing to worry about with CCTV? How do issues such as 'surveillance', 'privacy' and 'public' become implicated within these identity production processes? This article seeks to tackle these questions through the interrogation of a single story involving a high-street CCTV system, local police, local residents, a national television company and civil liberties group. This analysis of interactivity (based on a broadly ethno-methodological remit) augments current sociological accounts of CCTV. Instead of accepting panoptic metaphors as a means of understanding CCTV, the article will open up the closed circuit of CCTV through an analysis of the pantopticon in practice.     

False security or greater social inclusion? Exploring perceptions of CCTV use in public and private spaces accessed by the homeless

It has been well documented that owing to the vulnerability inherent in their situation and status, the homeless experience high rates of harassment and criminal victimization. And yet, the question of whether CCTV surveillance of public and private spaces – so frequently viewed by the middle classes as a positive source of potential security – might also be viewed by the homeless in similar ways. Within the present paper, I address this issue by considering the possibility that CCTV might be seen by some homeless men and women as offering: a) a measure of enhanced security for those living in the streets and in shelters, and; b) to the extent that security is conceived of as a social good, the receipt of which marks one as a citizen of the state, a means by which they can be reconstituted as something more than ‘lesser citizens’. To test these ideas, I rely on data from interviews conducted with homeless service users, service providers for the homeless, and police personnel in three cities. What is revealed is a mixed set of beliefs as to the relative security and meaning of CCTV.     

Why privacy keeps dying: the trouble with talk about the end of privacy

It is a curious fact how much talk about privacy is about the end of privacy. We term this ‘privacy endism,’ locating the phenomenon within a broader category of endist thought. We then analyze 101 newspaper articles between 1990 and 2012 that declare the end of privacy. Three findings follow. First, claims about the end of privacy point to an unusually broad range of technological and institutional causes. Privacy has been pronounced defunct for decades, but there has never been a near consensus about its causes. Second, unlike other endist talk (the end of art or history, etc.), privacy endism appears ongoing and not period specific. Finally, our explanation of the persistence and idiosyncrasy of claims to the end of privacy focuses on Warren and Brandeis’s 1890 negative conception of privacy as ‘the right to be let alone’: namely, modern privacy talk has always been endist because the right to privacy was born out of the conditions for its violation, not its realization. The conclusion comments on implications of that basic proposition.     

Privacy ethics in the age of disclosure: Sweden and america compared

Sweden, a model welfare state, and the United States, with its ethos of rugged individualism, have institutionalized ethical systems for protecting the research subject’s right to privacy. The ethical concerns driving these “codes” of ethics are similar across the two societies, but the institutional systems for protecting privacy, indeed the very definitions of privacy, are different, reflecting variant value systems. The Swedes have an open government but are vigilant and effective guardians of the privacy of individual files. In contrast, the Americans keep their government relatively closed but allow relatively easy access to individual files. Regardless of this basic difference, researchers in both countries are struggling to rethink their ethical systems in the face of rapid development of communications technology in what has emerged as the age of disclosure. This paper begins with the cultural concepts of privacy in Sweden and the United States. Privacy was chosen as the focus of this paper because it stands at the center of deception and disclosure in research, a pressing ethical problem facing sociologists today. Next is a comparison of the institutionalized systems for protecting the individual’s right to privacy in the two countries, followed by a discussion of the social pressures confronting the two systems. The paper concludes with a comparison of the ethical principles utilized by both countries. Kristina Freerks is an instructor of sociology in Sweden.     

CCTV oddity: archaeology and aesthetics of video surveillance

The paper narrates #OCTV – an art installation, performance and hacktivist project – the authors presented at the International Visual Sociology Association annual conference (Goldsmiths 2013). The installation used networked CCTV cameras and affordance of digital media to make surveillance space visible, beyond its representational value. It played with the co-constitution of the surveillance images through technologies, cultural practices, and ethics. The paper suggests the visual work of CCTV cameras is contextual to the specific configuration surveillance ecology takes. It proposes art projects as critical methodology for unpacking the social construction of the digital image. As a consequence, it recognises the challenges of using once-upon-a-time ethics forms with regards to ecologies of the visual. Instead, it suggests an ethical and political tension which should follow research ‘data’ during the lifetime of the project, and possibly in the ecologies yet to come.     

The public is personal: reflections on the ethical dimensions of selfie research

Derived from the standards of feminist qualitative research, this methodological reflection develops ‘the public is personal’ as a mode of critical awareness for visual culture researchers working with social media data such as the selfie. Against the prevalent logic of ‘but the data is already public’, this paper draws on empirical and theoretical insights to argue that the publicness of digital data is no indication of an individual’s consent to its use in contexts beyond how they originally intended. Rather than treating digital data as purely metric or divorcing it from its creator, researchers must be cognisant of the complex negotiations of privacy, agency, and subjectivity such artefacts represent. By centring the person behind the data, ‘the public is personal’ asserts the qualitative dimensions of publicly available digital data as key ethical considerations which defy generalities and require adaptive, reflexive responses.     

Privacy as a Common Good in the Digital World

This article seeks to broaden our understanding of online privacy in three ways: first, by drawing out the differences between the physical world and the digital world as those differences affect privacy; second, by exploring how the concept of the 'commons' might help us to understand social and economic relationships in cyberspace; and third, by analysing two contrasting views of privacy: privacy as a private or individual good and privacy as a common good. In order to analyse similarities and differences in privacy in the physical world and the online world, each is assessed in three ways: the obvious level of privacy available; the possibility of modifying that level of privacy to create or choose more or less privacy for oneself; and the degree to which the, prior or contemporaneous, privacy decisions of others affect the amount of privacy that is available to all. Applying an analysis based on the 'tragedy of the commons', the article concludes that at least part of cyberspace can be conceived as a 'commons' and that personal information flows could be considered a 'common pool resource' within that commons. Based on the likely calculations that individuals and organizations will make about collection and uses of personal information, the article next evaluates what would be the most effective policy approach to ensure that the common pool resource of personal information is not overused and degraded. The article concludes that a policy approach of providing individuals with a private means, either through property rights or some means of redressing their grievances, is unlikely to provide an effective means of protecting the common pool resource of personal information. A policy approach that acknowledges the common good basis of privacy and views personal information as a common pool resource provides an alternative view of the policy problems and offers suggestions in terms of rules and institutions that may be effective in addressing those problems.     

Sensing the Leviathan

The premise of this article is that the expansion of closed‐circuit television (CCTV) across the contemporary landscape and its utilization by control systems fundamentally alters the process of policing and the social landscape of the cultures involved. The physical extension and procedural contraction of the process of control is a fundamental component of the establishment of the society of control and the adjustments this necessitates in our approaches to the notion of “police” and “surveillance” necessitate investigation.     

'You'll never walk alone': CCTV surveillance, order and neo-liberal rule in Liverpool city centre

This paper is concerned to chart the establishment and uses of CCTV within the location of Liverpool city centre. In doing this the paper seeks to contextualize CCTV within contemporary 'partnership' approaches to regeneration which are reshaping the material and discursive form of the city. Thus CCTV schemes along with other security initiatives are understood as social ordering strategies emanating from within locally powerful networks which are seeking to define and enact orderly regeneration projects. In focusing on the normative aspects of CCTV, the paper raises questions concerning the efficacy of understanding contemporary forms of 'social ordering practices' primarily in terms of technical rationalities while neglecting other, more material and ideological processes involved in the construction of social order.     

Privacy encounters in Teledialogue

Privacy is a major concern when new technologies are introduced between public authorities and private citizens. What is meant by privacy, however, is often unclear and contested. Accordingly, this article utilises grounded theory to study privacy empirically in the research and design project Teledialogue aimed at introducing new ways for public case managers and placed children to communicate through IT. The resulting argument is that privacy can be understood as an encounter, that is, as something that arises between implicated actors and entails some degree of friction and negotiation. An argument which is further qualified through the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. The article opens with a review of privacy literature before continuing to present privacy as an encounter with five different foci: what technologies bring into the encounter; who is related to privacy by implication; what is entailed by the spaces of Teledialogue; how privacy relates to projected futures; and how privacy is also an encounter between authority and care. In the end, it is discussed how privacy conceptualised as an encounter is not already there surrounding people or places but rather has to be traced in the specific and situated relations between implicated actors, giving rise to different normative concerns in each case.     

SEXUAL PRIVACY AND EARLY SEXUAL DEBUT IN NAIROBI INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS1

The purpose of this paper is to examine sexual privacy as a factor that may influence the relatively earlier sexual debut among the urban poor in Nairobi. 40 focus group discussions were held with people aged 13–17, 18–24, 25–49 and 50+ years, community leaders and service providers in four informal settlements of Nairobi. Lack of sexual privacy was identified as a major problem. Although adults were reported to use various means to acquire some measure of privacy, such as waiting for children to fall asleep, switching off the lights and separating the sleeping areas using curtains, these measures were found inadequate. The participants therefore associated young people's early initiation of sexual activity with lack of sexual privacy. Sexual privacy has not received adequate research attention as a dimension of poverty that influences young people's sexuality. More studies are called for to unravel the specific association between sexual privacy among adults and young people's sexual behaviour. The living conditions of the urban poor should also be addressed to mitigate the effects of lack of sexual privacy.     

A New Privacy Paradox? Youth Agentic Practices of Privacy Management Despite “Nothing to Hide” Online

Focus groups conducted with Canadian teenagers examining their perceptions and experiences with cyber risk, center on various privacy strategies geared for impression management across popular social network sites (SNS). We highlight privacy concerns as a primary reason for a gravitation away from Facebook toward newer, more popular sites such as Instagram and Snapchat, as well as debates about the permeability of privacy on Snapchat in particular. The privacy paradox identifies a disjuncture between what is said about privacy and what is done in practice. It refers to declarations from youth that they are highly concerned for privacy, yet frequently disregard privacy online through “oversharing” and neglecting privacy management. However, our participants, especially older teens, invoked a different mindset: that they have “nothing to hide” online and therefore do not consider privacy relevant for them. Despite this mindset, the strategies we highlight suggest a new permutation of the privacy paradox, rooted in a pragmatic adaptation to the technological affordances of SNS, and wider societal acquiescence to the debasement of privacy online.     

Moving images: the mobility and immobility of 'kids standing still'

Mobility is a frequently recurring theme in recent debates around the emergence of new technologies. However, with this increasing attention paid to mobility, how does ‘immobility’ become notable as an absence of mobility? How are such perceptions of immobility used to occasion assessments of motive, intent and moral standing? This paper features a sociological interrogation of examples of immobility made notable through expectations of mobility. It utilises a study of CCTV as its principle example of the constitution and assessment of mobility and immobility. The paper explores theoretical strategies available for interrogating these issues. It concludes through an engagement with the boundaries constituted around mobility and immobility. The ways in which forms of assessment operate through, and further maintain, these boundaries are considered.     

Saying Something: The Location of Social Movements in the Surveillance Society

Arguing for social movement-based critiques of public surveillance, this article proposes an alternative approach to the established parameters of research on the contemporary surveillance society. As cities become increasingly organized around a logic of insecurity and fear, there has been an eruption of concern and debate about the expansion of urban public surveillance. But most of the research on this subject has paid little attention to the deliberate, collective forms of political critique raised by anti-surveillance activism. Rather, the predominant focus has been on concerns about privacy rights, civil liberties, and the dilemmas of balancing freedom with security. Moreover, the prevailing critical narrative contends that the radical expansion of surveillance has been largely met with consent from the public. Moving beyond such a discourse of consent, this article examines two examples of cultural interventions that seek to contest the growth of public surveillance, not as a problem limited to the violation of privacy rights but as a process that signifies the metastasizing weaponization of everyday life and the authoritarian circulation of fear. I suggest that the significance of contemporary anti-surveillance activism is found in its embeddedness in broader struggles rather than in the opposition to surveillance as an autonomous political aim.     

Predicting users’ privacy boundary management strategies on Facebook

This study examines the process by which Facebook users regulate their interpersonal privacy and information sharing. By tracing the influence of gender, Facebook usage, and privacy-protecting behaviors that are determined by knowledge and attitude, this research identifies a dynamic management process through which Facebook users maintain personal and interpersonal boundaries. Two distinct strategies are used – a privacy-setting control and a self-disclosure control. Based on data collected in a survey of 432 college students conducted in Hong Kong, our results suggest that different uses of Facebook activities (i.e., social interaction, social browsing, and entertainment) can be used to predict different boundary management strategies. Gender and privacy-related psychological factors (i.e., privacy literacy and concern about privacy) also showed significant effects. We concluded that the privacy setting options available on social networking sites such as Facebook were useful in providing users with a base point and a psychological sense of security, but they had little influence on the actual patterns of self-disclosure. To regulate their privacy boundaries, users were more likely to rely on frequently changing their privacy settings and on controlling their levels of self-disclosure.     

Privacy,data protection and emerging sciences and technologies: towards a common framework

Privacy is an important fundamental human right. It underpins human dignity and other values such as freedom of association and freedom of speech. However, privacy is being challenged in the networked society. The use of new technologies undermines this right because it facilitates the collection, storage, processing and combination of personal data by security agencies and businesses. This research note presents the background and agenda of the recently-commenced research project PRESCIENT, which aims at reconceptualizing the concept of privacy and developing means for the assessment of privacy impacts.     

Privacy revisited? Old ideals, new realities, and their impact on biobank regimes

Biobanks, collecting human specimen, medical records, and lifestyle-related data, face the challenge of having contradictory missions: on the one hand serving the collective welfare through easy access for medical research, on the other hand adhering to restrictive privacy expectations of people in order to maintain their willingness to participate in such research. In this article, ethical frameworks stressing the societal value of low-privacy expectations in order to secure biomedical research are discussed. It will turn out that neither utilitarian nor communitarian or classical libertarian ethics frameworks will help to serve both goals. Instead, John Rawls’ differentiation of the “right” and the “good” is presented in order to illustrate the possibility of “serving two masters”: individual interests of privacy, and societal interests of scientific progress and intergenerational justice. In order to illustrate this counterbalancing concept with an example, the five-pillar concept of the German Ethics Council will be briefly discussed.     

Privacy violations and procedural justice in the United States prisons and jails

Through constitutional amendments and case law, the United States citizens receive privacy protections. These same protections do not exist for individuals incarcerated in prisons and jails. Instead, their privacy rights are regularly replaced by larger institutional concerns for security, safety, and control. Such privacy violation measures may include electronic surveillance, recording of phone calls, opening/reading of mail, and searches of their person, cell, and property. Although it is expected that incarcerated individuals have fewer privacy rights than nonincarcerated citizens, some privacy violations may be perceived as procedurally unjust due to their severity and infringement upon incarcerated individuals' rights to dignity and respect. This has implications for the well-being of incarcerated individuals, the legitimacy of correctional officers, and as a result, the potential safety and security of institutions.     

The Evolution (or Devolution) of Privacy

This paper explores changes in the meaning of privacy. Because individuals understandings and experiences of privacy vary by sociohistorical contexts, privacy is difficult to define and even more challenging to measure. Avoiding common obstacles to privacy research, I examine privacy from the standpoint of its invasion. I develop a typology of privacy invasions and use it to analyze discussions of invasions of privacy in U.S. newspapers. I show that the nature of invasions discussed in the news is increasingly covert and continuous and find empirical support for the often-made claim that the concept of privacy is evolving in meaningful ways.