Stanford University Press Blog

Privacy in its Various Contexts

What kinds of things are you comfortable sharing? Your “Interests” and favorite “Quotations” on Facebook – many people are. Your professional profile on Linkedin – absolutely. Your personal financial documents and bill statements – maybe not.  Ultimately, everyone has a different take on what they think should be private.

With all the different possible circumstances, perhaps we shouldn’t base our definition of privacy on the convention arguments between private and public; personal and collective; protected and unprotected.  But how should we be approaching the idea of privacy? In this day and age when the advent of the internet has allowed unthinkable expanses of information to be available at the click of a mouse, how should privacy be defined -- from both political and moral standpoints?

 In an interview with Concurring Opinions, Helen Nissenbaum, author of Privacy in Context, Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, sheds light on this very question. Nissenbaum posits that instead of focusing on a public/private distinction, we should focus on what particular constraints should be placed on any information in any particular situation. So rather than place info into one of two categories, we would decide how much regulation, if any, that particular information should have in context.

So, when we join online communities like Facebook and Linkedin, we allow a certain amount of personal information to be accessible to others and we decide just how much we’d like them to see. However, when we sign up for online banking, we expect that all of the information we enter is protected and unseen by others. It’s not a simple matter of private vs. public anymore. With so many possible ways to share information, it seems like a two-category system just won’t work. While the amount of information flowing through our world increases daily, a look at privacy in its various contexts may be just what we need to sort it out.

Is a global floor possible? Heymann on working conditions around the world

There have been many theories and countless myths about the economic costs of providing good working conditions around the world This despite the fact that we have had little data to compare costs  and related benefits across different countries.  Working with a team of international researchers, Jody Heyman (and coauthor Alison Earle) of Raising the Global Floor, worked to fix that.  The book compares data from  190 countries, finally giving us a comprehensive look at working conditions around the globe. In recent interviews with ZÓcalo and the Diane Rehm show, Heymann uses her research to answer previously unanswerable questions, most importantly: What can we do to make a global floor possible?

 Previous theories about good working conditions have held that providing benefits in the workplace puts an upward pressure on prices and can be bad for a company’s, or a nation’s, competitiveness leading to an increase in unemployment. According to Heymann, “It turns out they’re just not factually true.”  She found that most countries actually do provide basic benefits like sick leave, including 14 of the 15 most competitive countries (all except the U.S.) However, many developing countries are behind, and even some of the world’s top competitors, like the U.S., have neglected to provide very basic needs to workers.

On the Diane Rehm Show, Heymann mentioned that one reason for the rapid spread of the H1N1 flu in the U.S. early last year may have been that in the absence of sick leave people continued to work even though they were sick, allowing the disease to spread quickly. Over 60 million Americans are currently without paid sick leave, according to Heymann, making the U.S. extremely behind other top competitive economies countries in that respect.

Overall, the research in the book supports the fact that the countries that flourish the most have provided workers with at least some benefits, (excluding the U.S.) Though our own country seems to be lagging in this respect, Heymann is optimistic about our future. When identifying what kinds of conditions would be needed for a global floor, Heymann makes it clear that things like paid sick leave for all, and annual family leave are beneficial for both workers and businesses.

So, is a global floor what we need for a better economy? Perhaps, according to Heymann’s findings, “the answer is yes.”

Stepping up science: Mitroff on the 'climategate' clamor

The recent ‘climategate’ flap – regarding some leaked e-mails suggesting that science has manipulated data to under-exaggerate global warming – has caused quite a stir within the field of science, and more importantly, outside of it.

 In an op-ed in the Short Stack of the Washington Post, Ian I. Mitroff addresses the ‘climategate’ scandal. Mitroff attributes the commotion surrounding climategate to science’s inability to educate the public about how scientific research is actually conducted. While science is often seen as a completely objective field of knowledge, what people have to bear in mind is that in reality science is conducted by real humans with, understandably, real opinions and biases. This fact, however, does not make science any less respectable or true.

As Mitroff says in his book Dirty Rotten Strategies: How we Trick Ourselves and Others into Solving the Wrong Problems Precisely, (co-author Abraham Silvers) “Although science is certainly one of the best ways that humans have ever invented for producing knowledge, it is not the only way.” What Mitroff wants us to take away from the 'climatgate' flap is not that science is flaky and fallible but that scientists do have social considerations and biases that actually allow their data to be better tested and proven over time. From Mitroff’s piece in the Short Stack: “ It's not just that opposing biases cancel out -- which they do -- but that opposing passions prod scientists to collect more data and invent new theories to see who's right. Without such passions, science would grind to a halt. After all, science is done by all-too-human beings.”

Scientists must now be unafraid to bring the social aspects of the field into the light of the public. Then, perhaps, we might have a better understanding of their methods and a better chance of dealing with the important issues that lie in our future.