Privacy and the Information Age
Serge Gutwirth author Raf Casert translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield
Published:22nd Dec '01
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
In a time in which new technologies make it easy to gather and process data, the discussion on privacy tends to focus exclusively on the protecting of personal data. To Serge Gutwirth, privacy involves far more. He advances the intriguing thesis that privacy is in fact the safeguard of personal freedom—the safeguard of the individual's freedom to decide who she or he is, what she or he does, and who knows about it. Any restriction on privacy thus means an infringement of personal freedom. And it's exactly this freedom that plays an essential role in every democracy.
Serge Gutwirth impressively draws on Dutch, German, French, and English language sources to develop a strong argument regarding the centrality of privacy to personal freedom and the challenges to that sacred connection posed by new, and increasingly omniscient, information technologies. A most welcome addition to the comparative literature on privacy and technology. -- Gary T. Marx, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; author of Windows Into the Soul: Surveillance and Society in an Age of High Technology
ISBN: 9780742517462
Dimensions: 228mm x 148mm x 12mm
Weight: 236g
144 pages