Why You May Not Even Have A Right To Privacy?

How much do you really value your privacy? When was the last time you audited your privacy? Is it really even important? What really makes up privacy? Did you know Singapore has been rated as “an endemic surveillance society” in survey: The 2007 International Privacy Ranking survey by Privacy International (PI) puts the republic in a category where it scored the worst for privacy protection.

I don’t know about you, but I have been pretty big on privacy ever since I could remember being dropped as a baby. I am so big on privacy, that’s probably the only reason why I became a prefect in school, it offered me an opportunity to read the newspaper all alone in the perfect’s mess room – the rest was just aerobics. This affliction carried through to NS when I gathered only officers in my unit had a right to a wooden partition, it wasn’t really a room, but at least I didn’t have to share a bunk bed with some stranger – yeap, I am big on privacy.

That’s why whenever I come across things like this; it just rubs me the wrong way - a crass case of neglect that has led to the loss of discs containing the names, addresses, dates of birth, bank account details and National Insurance numbers of 25 million people in the United Kingdom, (see reports by the BBC, the Financial Times, the Guardian and The Times).

It just sends me reeling. Yes I know, I may sound a bit on the edge regarding this topic but to me its important enough to still provoke fainting spells. I happen to be one of those who believe privacy is important; important enough to stick to cash purchases when buying stuff and I never ever sign up for freebies. I am one of those who model my life after nuclear submarines circa 1960, who run deep and silent, leaving hardly any electronic trails, not even so much as a residue. For starters, I am unabashed about paying a higher price for a little bit of privacy. I don’t really know why. If I am pressed, I guess it has alot to do with the way I am hardwired as a person, I just don’t want my thoughts, my ideas and my possessions being known to others unless it comes from me.

These days with the digital age privacy is frittering away imperceptibly. Firms even know how much you typically spend on food – with your 5% rebate link point card they can track everything you purchase right down to; how many rolls of toilet paper you’re using, pretty nifty, if you happen to be the shit snooper in Prima Deli. Now, now I know all this loss of privacy talk may seem trivial to some of you. After all aren’t we living in the full unedited glory of the blog era? That great age of emancipation when the likes of Otto Fong prances around baring and telling all?– really privacy must look like a corset lamp shade in a Martha Stewart show. It just doesn’t quiet fit, does it?

Why should privacy even matter in this age and time? What actually makes up privacy as a concept? Is it even a right?

The right to privacy – defined by Louis Brandeis is the right to be left alone i.e the right not to be kachau – at first glance it seems to be an elemental principle of civilized life. It’s the rallying cry of activist fighting for everything from the right to breast feed in Orchard to the sanctity of keeping those pesky camera’s away from the water cooler in the office. The problem with privacy only reveals itself on closer examination; it’s missing one vital ingredient; it lacks clarity.Infact, as a concept its incredibly shambolic and messy.

Let me explain what I mean. For one it’s self selecting; I don’t mind those snoopy camera’s in danky underground underpasses but I don’t like them in hotel lobbies eyeballing the way I look at those waitresses with high slits – besides when you really think about the whole idea of privacy, its hardly a robust concept. It really only becomes an issue when you realize your ‘rights’ have suddenly been violated – so just as my neighbor in my block can sometimes see me skipping out of bed for a quick bench press whenever I find it difficult to turn in. I too can see her busying herself over her internet binges over Victoria Secrets – now providing all of us continue doing a good job of pretending in the lifts and common corridor ‘everyone is minding their business’ and we are all happily playing prudish Victorians. Everything remains fine. The illusion of privacy is maintained.

So there you go, privacy is really flakey, nothing more than a state of mind.

I know just saying that may sound preposterous in an era where everything seems to be an inflation of rights. Almost everything we want or need we state in the form of a “rights” these days, whether it’s warranted or not. As a result our “rights per se” has become increasingly sloppy and petulant often appearing more shambolic than clear.

One of the main problem I believe about privacy is that it really means different things to different people – you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.

Even in the sphere of the internet, there are some bloggers who are very prepared to step into the lime light like Yawning Bread (one of the few who still writes intelligent articles) and then there are those who prefer to behave like the phantom of the opera, scurrying here and there in the shadows, that just goes to show, there’s hardly even any consensus on what we all typically refer to as the ‘right’ to privacy. We’re not very clear on exactly what we mean by the term “right,” and while many people can state what they think their rights are, my experience is that the claims are not very well thought out.

An initial challenge is to separate legal rights from moral rights. Many confuse the two, leading to some unacceptable conclusions. Legal rights are those that are specifically given to us by the political system in which we find ourselves. They do not always coincide with what we consider our moral rights to be.

For example, until the middle of the 19th century in the South in America, some people had the legal right to hold other people as slaves. But no one is willing to argue that they had the moral right to do so, no matter what the law at the time said.

The right to privacy is even more problematic from a legal standpoint ( I am not a lawyer but Dotty is and that’s what she tells me). One reader asked where our right to privacy was written down, and the short and easy answer is that it isn’t, at least not specifically. Most court rulings involving privacy have come from reading between the lines, which is why so many proclamations involving privacy are controversial.

From an ethical point of view, our concern isn’t with the legal right, but with the moral right, but really that’s a tome and probably takes a good hour to flesh out. So let me gut it out the long and splice in the short, why should we all have a right to privacy?

My view is that the right to privacy comes from our notion of having sovereignty over our own person – that each of us are very much like independent nations. Even if that whole idea of control is illusionary, it’s necessary, if we are to remain responsible for our decisions while maintaining our sense of autonomy.

This requires us to keep appropriate boundaries between us and other people. An important aspect of psychological health is to maintain these boundaries appropriately. To share intimate details of tangled sheets in our lives to all comers even strangers is just as much a sign of mental disorder as is allowing no intimacy at all.

When we allow people to have unwarranted access to us, it diminishes the control we have over our own lives. I am reminded knowledge is power – but power to whom? Power, at what price? Power, at whose detriment?

Some things I believe should be kept as far as possible from all of us. If we are to remain whole and mentally healthy individuals, that’s one more reason why, I am not a big fan of loud people, loud governments, loud firms, loud leadership, loud religion, loud music or loud anything - for me whenever, I am faced with anything that challenges my decibel intolerance. It just breeches that imaginary line in my head that just says, “hey you’re too close for comfort,” I just switch off. I am all for quiet firms, quiet religion, quiet food, quiet leadership and quiet governments, the type that respects my sense of space and scale. The type that’s polite enough to respect my right to say ‘no.’ The type that’s considerate enough to know it’s place like a well heeled terrrier, there but still not kinda there yet - like elevator music, it’s doesn’t try too hard, it’s effortless and knows it’s place.

That reminds me, I need to get a better pair of binoculars – I think my neighbor who likes to parade herself in Victoria Secrets just upgraded hers.  Guess what they say about technology may after all be true – we may not need to try so hard after all – at pretending that is.

Have to fly now!

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