Extinderea spatiului public, reconfigurarea spatiului privat (Workshop CADI, vineri 5 martie, ora 16:00)
Tehnologiile recente, de la retelele de calculatoare, world wide web, la camerele de supraveghere, conduc la o extindere a spatiului public in sensul urmator: informatii despre persoane care in trecut erau cunoscute numai de putini (de prieteni apropiati si familie) astazi devin accesibile practic oricui este interesat sa le afle. Aceasta extindere ridica semne de intrebare din perspectiva teoriei liberale clasice in care distinctia public-privat joaca un rol important. De exemplu, Judith N. Shklar in "Liberalism of Fear" scrie:
<<Liberalism ... as a strictly political theory is not necessarily linked to any one religious or scientific doctrine, though it is psychologically more compatible with some rather than with others. It must reject only those political doctrines that do not recognize any difference between spheres of the personal and the public. Because of the primacy of toleration as the irreducible limit on public agents, liberals must always draw such a line. This is not historically a permanent or unalterable boundary, but it does require that every public policy be considered with this separation in mind and be consciously defended as meeting its most severe current standard.
The important point for liberalism is not so much where the line is drawn, as that it must be drawn, and that it must under no circumstances be ignored or forgotten. The limits of coercion begin, though they do not end, with a prohibition upon invading the private realm, which originally was a matter of religious faith, but which has changed and will go on changing as objects of belief and the sense of privacy alter in response to the technological and military character of governments and the productive relationships that prevail. It is a shifting line, but not an erasable one, and it leaves liberals free to espouse a very large range of philosophical and religious beliefs.>>
Felul in care se aplica teoria liberala la noul context nu este evident. Distinctia liberala public/privat are sens din perspectiva drepturilor de proprietate fizica, in timp ce evolutia tehnologica recenta e inteleasa mai degraba din prisma distinctiei public/secret, referindu-se la informatie. Situatia cu care ne confruntam nu este atat de limitare a proprietatii private in favoarea extinderii proprietatii publice, cat despre incapacitatea indivizilor de a-si mentine, ca pana acum, identitati diferite adaptate la un context sau altul al vietii lor. Spre exemplu, angajatorii tin cont de fotografiile de pe Facebook cu angajatul X beat la o petrecere de vara trecuta (postate de prietenii sai); firmele de asigurari vor sa aiba acces la intreaga ta istorie medicala (care se presupune ca ar fi confidentiala); guvernele nedemocratice infiltreaza retelele sociale si aresteaza opozantii inainte ca acestia sa apuce sa faca mare lucru; guvernele democratice colecteaza date personale in vederea eficientizarii protectiei sociale si sigurantei cetatenilor, dar nu pot garanta ca aceste date nu sunt folosite (cu sau fara acordul institutiilor) in alte scopuri.
Paul Ohm in "Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization" argumenteaza ca mentinerea secreta a datelor private este tehnic imposibila si nerealista. Garantarea secretului datelor personale prin contract s-ar putea sa fie deci o promisiune care nu poate fi facuta cu buna credinta. Iar politicile publice legate de tehnologiile informationale trebuie sa aiba si ele in vedere acest lucru. Iar ideea de a da oamenilor "drept de autor" asupra datelor lor personale s-ar putea sa nu fie abordarea optima.
Care ar fi problema daca toate informatiile ar fi publice? James Grimmelmann, in "Accidental Privacy Spills" face urmatoarea remarca:
<<On a technical level, privacy and copyright are isomorphic problems. Information is to be shared with certain people and not with others. From this observation have come some interesting ideas. ... But this overlap has unfortunate consequences, as well, because many people’s ethical intuitions cut very differently across these two problems. A technically consistent pair of responses to them may feel wildly inconsistent as a matter of right and wrong. If credit-card databases were trivially available on major BitTorrent trackers, how many people who now believe in file-sharing would demand a complete ban on BitTorrent?
The conventional distinction between privacy and copyright is that the information is used in different ways. Copyright violations tend to involve many individuals violating the rights of a few large entities; privacy violations often reverse this picture. This asymmetry makes it possible to enforce privacy protections. You could stop the NSA in its tracks by prohibiting them from maintaining the wrong sort of database. You could go out, find major commercial violators, and slap them with big fines. The traditional privacy violator invades privacy wholeseale; “copyright infringement” today often connotes something much more individualistic.>>
Vineri, 5 martie, Vlad Tarko si Constantin Vica vorbesc despre posibilele consecinte negative ale imposibilitatii mentinerii secrete a datelor personale - secrete atat fata de guverne, cat si fata de organizatii private (fie ele comerciale sau non-profit, e.g. religioase) precum si despre efectele generalizarii tehnologiilor de supraveghere.
Texte:
Paul Ohm, "Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization", fragment
David Brin, "The Transparent Society" (facultativ)
