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Control and Benefit Are Morally Owed to the Source
Richard A. Wright
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Reframing the Issues
- 3. The “High Cost to Industry” Defense
- 3.1 Raw Materials as a Cost of Doing Business
- 3.2 The Cost of Correcting Past Inequities as a Cost of Doing Business
- 3.3 Originator Control of Materials as a Feature of Doing Business
- 4. The “Private” is “Public” Defense
- 4.1 Private Information and “Voluntary” Release
- 4.2 Private Information in the “Public” Domain
- 4.3 Autonomy as the Basis for Understanding Privacy
- 5. Toward a Resolution
- 6. Concluding Thoughts
There would be nothing much to talk about if personal information
were worthless. Because it is not, as evidenced by the growth and expansion
of the information industry, the question must be how to structure that
industry in a manner which allows proportional benefits to the source
of information as a primary objective.
The first relevant question to be asked is not “Who has a stake here?”
but rather, “What is at stake here?” or, “What is the primary
material of production in this industry?” The answer, of course,
is first and foremost personal information about individuals, secondarily
information about groups or companies. Without information, the “information
industry” cannot function, any more than the steel making industry
can function without iron ore.
Recognition of this point is crucial, because it reframes the issue. For
there is no other major industry which can obtain its material of production
for free, and generally without the knowledge of the individuals who are
the source of that material. There is no other industry which can so cavalierly
define itself and its materials to avoid responsible recognition of their
material’s source. As a result, the information industry’s position
on privacy issues, as described by Ware, is untenable.
The only possible way the industry can avoid this untenable position on
privacy is to accept one of three alternatives: deny that it is an industry
and/or that information is its basic material, thus the critique does
not hold; or, accept in principle the critique and its legitimacy, but
reject its application for some reason other than its correctness; or,
finally, prove that information as material is so different from other
materials of production that the critique is not valid because it simply
does not fit.
The first alternative is obviously absurd given today’s information
industry, although as Ware pointed out, 20 years ago it would have been
plausible. That alternative will thus be rejected out of hand. The second
alternative has some promise, and in fact underlies the industry argument
that nothing should be done about understanding or resolving the privacy
violation problems because the cost to the information industry would
be too high. This alternative will be discussed in Section 3 below. The
third alternative has more promise, and in fact underlies industry claims
that most relevant information is actually “public” thus does
not admit of the same treatment as other types of materials, such as iron
ore, which are “private.” This alternative will be broached
in Section 4 of the paper, although its complexity will require much fuller
treatment.
Before we go further, however, it is necessary to distinguish between
two categories of information, original and derivative. Original information
is that which is usable in its presenting form and which derives from
the directly from the source. Such information, which may be “public”
or “private,” has as its fundamental characteristic some fact(s)
about the source. Derivative information, on the other hand, is that gained
by inference, extrapolation, statistical analysis, or other manipulation,
or interpretation, of original information. Ware’s example of CNI
is an instance of original information, as is a mailing list compiled
from mail order customers. His example of statistically projecting bill
paying habits is an instance of derived information, as is projection
of demographic trends from current census data.
The importance of this distinction is that all arguments concerning information
acquisition must first be made concerning original information, since
without such information, the derived is of little consequence or concern.
Additionally, derived information raises concerns peripheral to the privacy
issue, such as accuracy of predictions and legitimacy of predictive information
in factual decision making. This paper will focus exclusively on considerations
relevant to original information.
Go to: 3. The “High Cost to Industry” Defense
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