CHAPTER Privacy Overview 2 RIVACY IS AN area of growing importance for people and organizations. This growth roughly corresponds with the growth of the internet, which has made it possible for peo- Pple to share all types of information very quickly. Organizations collect and use information to conduct business, governments collect and use information to provide services and security for their citizens, and individuals share information to get goods and services. People also share information to network while looking for jobs and to catch up with old friends. However, this in- creased collection of information comes with questions about proper information use. This chapter provides an overview of privacy issues. Because privacy is a very large field, it is impossible to discuss all of the unique and interesting issues in the field of privacy. For the most part, this chapter is limited to the areas where information technology and privacy meet. This chapter also will address general privacy concepts. Chapter 2 Topics This chapter covers the following topics and concepts: • Why privacy is an issue • What privacy is • How privacy is different from information security • What the sources of privacy law are • What threats to privacy there are in the Information Age • What workplace privacy is • What general principles for privacy protection exist in information systems Chapter 2 Goals When you complete this chapter, you will be able to: • Describe basic privacy principles • Explain the difference between information security and privacy © mirjanajovic/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images 31 © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC. NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION. 32 PART I | Fundamental Concepts • Describe threats to privacy • Explain the important issues regarding workplace privacy • Describe the general principles for privacy protection in information systems Why Is Privacy an Issue? Advances in technology are forcing people to think about how their personal data is used and shared. To give some examples: • A chef enters her email address on a website to buy a new blender. She then begins to receive junk email from many different appliance companies. • A school district fires an elementary school teacher after parents complain to the school principal about unprofessional pictures on the teacher’s personal web page. • A professor gives students a homework assignment. The students must use the internet to collect as much publicly available data as possible about a particular government official. • An organization tracks how many users visit its website each day. It records the number of times users click on links on the homepage and tracks each user’s computer Internet Protocol (IP) address. It also tracks the web page that each user was on immediately be- fore visiting the organization’s web page. • A person buys an MP3 player at a thrift shop. The person later discovers that the MP3 player contains files on U.S. military personnel, including their Social Security numbers (SSNs). Advances in technology change how people live. For example, the discovery of electricity led to huge societal advances. Today, electrical service is a utility that many take for granted. The creation of the telephone allowed people to communicate over greater distances. Today, it seems unusual to find an adult who does not carry a smartphone that provides both voice and data services. The rise in internet use also has the potential to change how people live. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, it is estimated that over 88 percent of U.S. households had internet ac- cess in 2018.1 You can expect that number to continue to grow. People use the internet for almost everything: learning, entertainment, and work. You can search the internet for almost any type of data. (In fact, almost every endnote in this book contains a reference to a website.) The internet is also used as a forum for sharing all types of information nearly instantaneously. The internet allows media companies to report on world events immediately. Anyone can publish anything to the world with just the click of a mouse. © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC. NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION. CHAPTER 2 | Privacy Overview 33 However, the rise of the internet has led to some privacy concerns: • Increased access to information • Increased amount of information • Electronic tracking and monitoring This increased access to information has some complications. For example, anyone in the world can view information published on the internet. Therefore, even enemies of the government can view government information posted online. People can copy and use 2 articles posted to the internet without the author’s permission. Blogs and pictures that appear on personal web pages for family and friends to view are sometimes available to Privacy Overview anyone, anywhere. The amount of information on the internet is also a concern. Larger and more complex information systems allow businesses and governments to collect more and more individual data, which has led to the concept of Big Data. Big Data refers to large and complex data col- lections. Sophisticated applications review and analyze data collected from many sources. The owners of these systems can accumulate large amounts of data about people, which they can use for their own purposes. For example, they can create highly detailed individual profiles by combining their data with that of other systems. They also can sell the data they collect to NOTE third parties. Privacy issues are challenged by Big Data collections A search engine is a program that because the collections contain vast amounts of information from retrieves files and data from a computer many different sources. network. You use a search engine to People leave electronic footprints in many places on the in- search the internet for information. ternet. Internet service providers (ISPs) maintain logs that track Google, the most used internet search performance information. Websites track the actions of visitors to engine, has become so popular that “to the site, and organizations may track and record the internet and google”—meaning to search the inter- email activities of employees. Service providers of all types back net for information—was added to the up their logs and data for disaster recovery purposes. These back- Oxford English Dictionary in June 2006.2 ups contain personal information. Many people do not know that their activities are recorded, stored, and monitored in so many different ways. Electronic tracking and monitoring also create privacy con- cerns. Many people believe that they are anonymous on the inter- NOTE net and that when they surf the internet or post information their A blog is a personal, online journal. The actions are private. They are not. word “blog” comes from the words web Most people want certain types of data kept secret. They be- and log. A blog author uses this online lieve that if they must share their data, they should at least be able journal to publish comments and per- to control how the data is subsequently used. These beliefs form sonal observations. part of the basis of the concept of privacy. What Is Privacy? Privacy is a simple term that describes many different but related concepts. Writers spend a lot of time trying to define different types of privacy concepts, which is hard because © Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC. NOT FOR SALE OR DISTRIBUTION. 34 PART I | Fundamental Concepts privacy issues often overlap. There are two very general ways of thinking about privacy concepts: • Freedom from government observation and intrusion • Freedom to control one’s own personal information The rise of technology and the internet further complicates these simple definitions and our understanding of privacy issues. At its core in the technology realm, privacy means that a person has control of his or her personal data. Control means that a person can specify whether he or she wants to share in- formation and the purposes for which he or she wants to share that information. And, if the person decides to share information, control means that he or she should also have a say in how that data is collected, used, and shared. Control means that a person has a choice about when he or she is tracked and monitored. Privacy rights are individual rights that exist independent of any type of technology. Privacy is a large area of study. In particular, this chapter discusses personal data privacy concerns created or heightened because of an increase in electronic information gathering, storage, monitoring, and transmission. FYI A core privacy right for most Americans is the concept that the government’s power to interfere in the privacy of its citizens is limited. This means that people and their information must be free from unreasonable government intrusion. The government must not investigate a person or his or her personal information without a good reason. Courts spend a lot of time defining when governments are allowed to investigate their citizens. Types of Personal Information The types of information that a person considers private are usually very personal. However, what is very private information for one person may not be as private for others. Informa- tion that most people generally consider private includes the following: • SSN or other identification numbers—This includes an individual’s driver’s license and passport numbers. • Financial information—This includes bank and credit card account numbers. This also includes investment and retirement account information. Most people also consider the amount of money in these accounts private information. • Health information—This includes diagnoses and prescription drug information. Most people consider information regarding mental illness to be highly sensitive and private. • Biometric data—This type of data includes fingerprints, DNA analysis, and iris scanning. It also includes data about a person’s physical or behavioral traits. Security professionals and security equipment use biometric data to identify a particular person.