What Is Privacy - Control

By: Jason M. Pittman, Sc.D.

I want privacy to end. Before that can happen, we need to know precisely what privacy is. So far we have explored three constructs in our quest for such an explanation: non-intrusion, seclusion, and limits. I want to explore a fourth construct now and that construct is control.

I suspect that people will argue that privacy as control is a difference in degrees compared to privacy as limits, but perhaps a difference lies in the contrast to privacy as seclusion. I do think that privacy as control is a different kind of privacy than seclusion. There’s a difference between control and limitation. Let’s discuss this as a prelude to exploring control as an answer to our ‘What is privacy?’ question.

Where privacy as limits implies that we use a continuum of limitations on access to our information, I think that control is less flexible, more concrete. In fact, the ability to exert control over information could be the very essence of privacy. Control is over one’s information, not of one's information. We must ask, however, control in what manner?

Control is a tricky concept as the initial impression may be to consider control as a means of regulating access to information. I view such a conceptualization as incorrect. Access is limited, not controlled. On the other hand, information innately has a flow; towards, away, unidirectional, bidirectional, and so forth. Thus, I contend that privacy as control is a construct associated with information flow. Like any flow, the stream can be redirected, diverted. That, to me, is privacy as control.

Then we must recognize the implicit nature of information being non-static. That is, if privacy is control and if control is redirection or diverting of information flow. Further, flow must be information in motion.

In this manner, control is an enforcement mechanism for privacy as limits. Additionally, I think privacy as control can operate independently insofar as we can redirect information away from an entity we do not want to access or know such information. The independence of control is subtle but material.

I suggest that the privacy as a control construct illuminates one of, if not the biggest, flaw with privacy overall. That is, privacy attempts to restrict something (information) which is by its nature not something that easily facilitates restriction.

We have one more construct to examine however. Maybe privacy as knowing will give us the final answer.