Privacy

We live more and more of our lives online; we rely on the internet as we work correspond with friends and loved ones and go through a multitude of mundane activities like paying bills streaming videos reading the news and listening to music. Without thinking twice we operate with the understanding that the data that traces these activities will not be abused now or in the future. There is an abstract idea of privacy that we invoke and concrete rules about our privacy that we can point to if we are pressed. Nonetheless too often we are uneasily reminded that our privacy is not invulnerable-the data tracks we leave through our health information the internet and social media financial and credit information personal relationships and public lives make us continuously prey to identity theft hacking and even government surveillance. A great deal is at stake for individuals groups and societies if privacy is misunderstood misdirected or misused. Popular understanding of privacy doesn''t match the heat the concept generates. With a host of cultural differences as to how privacy is understood globally and in different religions and with ceaseless technological advancements it is an increasingly complex topic. In this clear and accessible book Leslie and John G. Francis guide us to an understanding of what privacy can mean and why it is so important. Drawing upon their extensive joint expertise in law philosophy political science regulatory policy and bioethics they parse the consequences of the forfeiture however great or small of one''s privacy.