Privacy in the Information Age

Brookings Institution book on privacy issues     Fred H. Cate, a nationally known expert on privacy law and electronic commerce, is professor of law at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington.

Privacy in the Information Age by Fred H. Cate (Published, Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution Press, 1997, 248 pages) Reviewed by R. W. Bradford (The following is excerpted from a book review published in The Independent Review, Volume 3, Number 4, see link at bottom for full review. See also link to Brookings Institution for more information on this book.) For advocates of the liberal social order, a society in which the rights to life, liberty, and property are recognizedthe issue of privacy is a thorny one. Although we tend to believe, in general, that we ought to be able to maintain our own privacy, we recognize that information about us is, to the extent that it is property at all, a very peculiar kind of property. And make no mistake: privacy is about information. As Alan Westin wrote in Privacy and Freedom, it is "the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others." For the liberal, the first problematic aspect of the issue is the uncertainty concerning who owns information about individuals, groups, or institutions. Suppose, for example, that Smith sees Jones in the supermarket. Presumably, Smith has a right to that information; the supermarket is, after all, a public place, and he has as much right to be there and to observe as anyone else does. But what right does Smith have to dispose of the information? May he sell it or give it away to anyone he wishes? ... Furthermore, the cost of replicating information seems to be in constant long-term decline. Four millennia ago, information could be duplicated from one person to another only if someone orally related it and someone else processed it into his memory. Such transfer was both cumbersome and relatively unreliable. Two millennia ago, information could be encoded and stored, but the process (handwriting) was very labor-intensive. Half a millennium ago, information could be mass produced by printing, a huge improvement but still an expensive process unless a large number of copies were needed. A half-century ago, information could be reproduced by copying machines. For the first time, small quantities of information could be stored and reproduced in small quantities at a relatively low cost: a sheet of paper could hold approximately 5,000 characters, or 5 kilobytes of information, at a cost of about 5 cents per kilobyte. Today, anyone with a microcomputer can duplicate 650 megabytes of informationthe entire Encyclopedia Britannica, for exampleat a cost of perhaps $1.00, or about 0.00015 cents per kilobyte. ... For rest of review at Independence Institute web site click here. For information on this book on the Brookings Institution web site click here. Further information and endorsements from Brookings Institution web site: "Privacy in the Information Age" involves questions that cut across the fields of business, communications, economics, and law. Cate examines the debate in provocative, jargon-free, detail. "Privacy in the Information Age is a breath of fresh air in a debate that heretofore has viewed privacy in America the way George Kennan once viewed the Soviets, as something desperately in need of government containment. Hopefully Fred Cate's book will sober those who would erect expensive, intrusive European-like bureaucracies to do a job that consumer freedom and open markets will always do better." Duncan MacDonald General Counsel, Citibank Bankcards Europe and North America "No new inventaion arrives without a mixture of advantages and disadvantages. New electronic information networks combine immediate blessings with the risk of a long-term loss of privacy. Fred Cate, one of our nation's most talented young legal scholars, penetrates this dilemma and suggests ways to balance the good and bad in our information revolution." Newton N. Minow Sidney and Austin Former Chair, Federal Communications Commission