Privacy research across disciplines touches on some similar themes, spheres of activity, control and individual versus the group. Inherent in these themes is the notion of values, and the determination that one ‘has privacy’ or ‘does not have privacy’. This threshold is contextually dependent (consistent with Nissenbaum’s theory) on the amount of overall privacy available (Nissenbaum, 2009). Adapting Marsh’s thresholds for trust (Marsh, 1994), figure below illustrates this for privacy.
Threshold for Privacy
An absence of privacy is not the same as being the subject of total surveillance, which suggests a negative valuation of privacy is possible. My work is focused on the positive valuation for privacy. Historically we each made a determination about our own degree of privacy based on a number of factors such as those described earlier. Technology has changed the availability of those factors, and added new ones (described later).
The notion of this threshold nonetheless underpins the value of privacy.