Privacy

Personal computers have introduced new ways to handle pdvate biblographic and text files. The most important factors to consider to achieve satisfactory results in building a bibhographic or text database are the type of information to be stored and the needs of the user. Types of information include correspondence, research results and documentation, meeting notes, and bibliographic references. Needs of the user to be considered should include the potential number of users of the database, restrictions for the access and display of the information because of privacy or proprietary reasons, and the retrieval mechanisms (eg, by keyword, authority list, controUed vocabulary, author, tide, date, or other document or information attributes). In addition, criteria for selecting and encoding information for the database need to be established. 

Confidentiality of records can be important to occupants, especially if they are concerned that lAQ complaints will lead to negative reactions from their employers. There may be legal penalties for violating confidentiality of medical records. By reassuring occupants that privacy will be respected, investigators are more likely to obtain honest and complete information. It is advisable to explain the nature of investigative activities, so that rumors and suspicions can be countered with factual information. 

Higher incomes, higher automobile ownership, and a decline in the population and workplaces that can be sciwcd by mass transit has lead to the declining mass transit demand. Criticism of this shift toward the private automobile comes mainly because the individual driver receives the short-term benefits (privacy, comfort, speed, and convenience), while the negative social consequences (air pollution, traffic jams, and resource depletion) are shared by all. Moreover, if people drove less, and drove more-fuel-efficient vehicles, the positive national goal of less dependence on imported oil would be achieved. 

Responding to a comment about die weight of the tree-stump stools in die lounge, Mr. Hunter explained that they were cut down and polished from a butternut tree in Mr. Wilson s father s backyard in Massachusetts. I pushed on mine heavily to face die bar and give my neighbors more privacy. 

We prefer privacy, said the suave gatekeeper who answered the phone. We try to be as quiet and peaceful as possible. Soft click. 

Isadore Perlman and I arrived in Chicago aboard the City of San Francisco. Although our trip from Berkeley took almost two full days, we feel that the time has not been wasted. Many lively discussions ensued in the privacy of our bedroom and, with appropriate care, in the club car regarding ways to separate element 94 chemically from uranium (that will be neutron-irradiated in chain-reacting piles) and from the fission by-products that will be produced concurrently in the neutron-irradiation process. 

The confidentiality of records that could identify subjects should be protected to assure their privacy The trials must be accepted by an Independent Ethics Committee (lECj/lnstitutional Review Board (IRB) before commencing the study... 

Mentoring relationships are of a voluntary, trust-based nature. Both parties often share very personal thoughts and experiences with each other. Mentor and mentee should therefore protect one another s reputation by respecting the confidentiality and privacy of the meetings. 

Ethical Issues Privacy, Liability, Ownership, and Power... 

ETHICAL ISSUES PRIVACY, LIABILITY, OWNERSHIP, AND POWER... 

The single best source for quick and reasonably thorough access to the body of knowledge associated with computer ethics is Deborah Johnson s Computer Ethics (3rd edition, 2001). The first edition of that work [17], the first book listed under computer ethics in the Philosopher s Index, provides a conceptual framework for the issues of privacy, liability, ownership, and power. Despite its very early appearance in the short history of computer ethics, much of the analysis retains its value. 

For one thing, the first part of the book presents a modest introduction to the basic considerations that applied ethics most often employs, namely, rights, justice, and utility. The concept of rights, which are an individual s entitlements to those liberties, choices, opportunities, and items having serious consequence for human life, is precisely what privacy depends on for protection. As well, the concept of rights significantly bears upon questions of ownership, that is, the right to property. 

The previous sort of question is relevant to the matter of computer use and the issue of privacy. In fact, computer use may have altered the way we think and should think of privacy. Before the advent and prevalence of computers, intrusions into an individual s privacy were largely time- and place dependent. The intrusion could be done but only on a small scale. As Johnson [15] notes, however, computers have changed the nature of intrusion into privacy as well as the scale of intrusion into privacy. The result is a demand to rethink privacy and rethink the framework of applied ethics, especially because the scale of intrusion may change the qualitative nature of the offense. 

But as philosophers have remarked and courts have ruled, the right to privacy is not absolute. In fact, the place and importance of the right to privacy are still being explored, as the Supreme Court decisions in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) demonstrate. As a result, decisions regarding the right to privacy are very often driven by context. Such may be the case with situations involving computer use, the right to privacy, and pharmaceutical research. 

Assuming that standard codes of conduct, for example, the Nuremburg Code (1947) and the World Medical Association s Declaration of Helsinki, are followed by researchers, the element of consent will already have been satisfied. In fact, as far as the element of consent to the intrusion into privacy goes, the medical community s doctrine of informed consent is a very strict application of the element of consent. We may note that the specific informed consent of an individual human subject of research may not be adequate to the decisions surrounding data mining. 

On the other hand, a topic such as the duty of honesty, although generally stated, holds a lot of interest for the philosopher for the particular manner in which the duty of honesty might appear in research using human subjects. The duty of honesty governs informed consent with regard to health risks, but it could also serve as a springboard to inform human subjects of the potential risks to privacy as well, even if those risks are not well understood. 

Ware WH. Contemporary privacy issues. In Bynum TW, Maner W, John L. Fisher JL, editors, Computing and privacy. New Haven Southern Connecticut State University Press, 1992 4-19. 

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