ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] Is Big Data intrinsically an invasion of privacy?

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John McClure <jmcclure@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 13:54:33 -0800
Message-id: <52D70399.9020704@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Nelson Mandela's "Ubuntu" is essentially human-ness, those traits that distinguish us from animals. One of these certainly must be privacy, derived from common performance of many bodily functions (including digitized communications). Lower order animals we say have no such expectations do they and we certainly accord animals none. These 'rights' are not itemized in our Constitution -- it would make the 2nd amendment quite banal. Do we have a right to marry another? It's not in the Constitution, but surely we can agree that we have that right. So the mere fact it is not spelled out "legally" is hardly an impediment to the fact of its ontological existence -- this is true of any non-substantial concept.

It may be Lawrence Lessig to whom you referred. Anyway, it is conceivable to me the 'privacy' of digital communications is addressable under copyright law, for I own all that I say. Which brings to mind an ancient design for what is now HTTP that identified ownership in vitro of each bit of digitized communications.
/john

On 1/15/2014 1:22 PM, John Bottoms wrote:
Duane,

I have not seen an ontology of privacy. There have been some discussions about this issue that might be informative.

First, privacy is not mentioned in the Constitution as a right. It has been argued that it is a derived right from other rights mentioned including "...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." and "...freedom from search and seizure", (Fourth amendment) but even then, there are limits to this freedom for searches using warrants.

Yes, we do allegedly give up rights with Terms of Agreement. However, there is a professor at Harvard who argues that TOA's are not valid contracts in that they are not arrived at as an agreement between equal parties. I don't think this has been tested in court.

If I had to write an ontology for privacy I would attempt to do it as a reflection of a contractual agreement, in that privacy is something owed to me, either as a citizen or as derived from the Constitution. I don't think it can appear "vero eos et auras" (out of thin air) from living in a democracy. That is, I don't see it as a right imbued by having residence within the borders of the U.S.

While we are at it, I have been working on "roles" and have been considering the term "imbued". It came up during a movie I was watching. The bad guy was wondering "Is this Kaley's room? It seems odd that that the room has 'Kaley' assigned to it." It sounded like he was wondering if a room, a non-agent, can have a role assigned to it. I decided that whatever it was, to be "imbued" is to have others recognize that the room is assigned to a certain person, in this case "Kaley". It clearly comes off as one of Austen's Speech Acts such as christening a ship. It is an assignment that is recognized by a group of people and is logged in a registry of ship names, just as the members of the (Firefly) ship recognizes the room as Kaley's.

Likewise, I think privacy is something that is culturally recognized by groups of people. Even as children, before we have any notion of contracts or law, we recognize that we need privacy. And the courts should recognize this innate need. They already award anonymity to investors who establish corporations, so shouldn't individuals be able to claim this same privilege?

-John Bottoms
 FirstStar System
 Concord, MA USA

 
On 1/15/2014 3:13 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
On 1/15/14 2:51 PM, Duane Nickull wrote:
It is an invasion of privacy if you do not consent to have your data used as such.  In most cases, people willingly signed over those rights.  Check the ToS on Facebook for example.

Secondly, opting in is not the issue, opting out is.

There is also the concept of context and traverse ability.  I may have your weight recorded but in a manner where it is not directly attributable to you without further correlation.  Cookies are a good example of this.

Duane Nickull
***********************************
Technoracle Advanced Systems Inc.
Consulting and Contracting; Proven Results!
i.  Neo4J, PDF, Java, LiveCycle ES, Flex, AIR, CQ5 & Mobile
t.  @duanenickull
+1

Privacy is self-calibration of one's vulnerability on or offline.

"You" not "Them" decide to lock your front-door at night, for instance.

Any situation in which "You" aren't the calibrator of "Your" vulnerability is an invasion of privacy.

-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      
Founder & CEO 
OpenLink Software     
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/kidehen
Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/+KingsleyIdehen/about
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen






 
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
 



 
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
 


_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J    (01)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>