Understanding Privacy Online: Development of a Social Contract Approach to Privacy

Abstract

Recent scholarship in philosophy, law, and information systems suggests that respecting privacy entails understanding the implicit privacy norms about what, why, and to whom information is shared within specific relationships. These social contracts are important to understand if firms are to adequately manage the privacy expectations of stakeholders. This paper explores a social contract approach to developing, acknowledging, and protecting privacy norms within specific contexts. While privacy as a social contract-a mutually beneficial agreement within a community about sharing and using information-has been introduced theoretically and empirically, the full impact on firms of an alternative framework to respecting the privacy expectations of stakeholders has not been examined. The goal of this paper is to examine how privacy norms develop through social contract's narrative, to redescribe privacy violations given the social contract approach, and to critically examine the role of business as a contractor in developing privacy norms. A social contract narrative dealing specifically with issues of privacy is an important next step in exploring a social contract approach to privacy. Here, the narrative is used to explain to analyze the dynamic process of privacy norm generation within particular communities. Based on this narrative, individuals within a given community discriminately share information with a particular set of obligations in mind as to who has access to the information and how it will be used. Rather than giving away privacy, individuals discriminately share information within a particular community and with norms governing the use of their information. Similar to contractual business ethics' impact on global commerce in explaining how and why norms vary across global contexts, the social contract approach to privacy explains how and why norms vary across communities of actors. Focusing on agreements around privacy expectations shifts the responsibility of firms from adequate notification to the responsibility of firms as contractors to maintain a mutually beneficial and sustainable solution.

Linking Platforms, Practices, and Developer Ethics: Levers for Privacy Discourse in Mobile Application Development

“…Work in business ethics focused on defining the needs and expectations of stakeholders such as firms and consumers in computing ethics debates (Drover et al 2012;Martin 2015). Seminal work in computer ethics analyzed existing systems for biases and ethical import (Brey 2012;Friedman and Nissenbaum 1997;Guston 2011;Moor 1985).…”

“…Within this work, privacy is a value that frequently rises to the forefront of conversations about developers, consumers, and the platforms they use (Ashworth and Free 2006;Introna and Pouloudi 1999;Martin 2015;Urban et al 2012). Privacy's status as an essentially contested concept (Mulligan et al 2016) is illustrated within these debates.…”

“…This paper investigates reflection about an important ethical topic within the mobile device ecosystem: privacy. The necessity of ''privacy'' for mobile applications is advocated by ethicists (Martin 2015), consumers Shilton 2015, 2016), regulators (Harris 2013), and firms that recognize the link between privacy and consumer trust (Martin 2013;Pavlou (2011)). However, consumers, firms, regulators, and ethicists may understand ''privacy'' differently.…”

Ethics in educational technology research: Informing participants on data sharing risks

“…Although social contract theory has been proposed in the context of business ethics, its principles are relevant to educational technology as the field incorporates greater tracking of learners and educators over extended periods of time. Martin () elaborates that a key tenet of the theory is in directing the focus towards agreements around privacy expectations which shifts the responsibility from adequate notification to the responsibility of maintaining a mutually beneficial and sustainable solution. Similarly, the fair transaction model of informed consent states that “valid consent transactions should prove fair to both parties in light of their preferences” and that researchers should “treat prospective subjects fairly in light of the key values of personal sovereignty (reflecting its negative and positive dimensions) and well‐being” (Miller & Wertheimer, ).…”

Human Rights-Based Approach to Science, Technology and Development: A Legal Analysis

“…Disclosures on the government collection and monitoring of the personal data via large corporations have boosted the awareness level amidst the general public and spurred many players to work for transmuting the right to privacy in the online sphere. 72 Recent technologies have ascertained new challenges in the society, conflicting with both transactional traffic and content data. Personal data is moving continuously and its specificity will be jeopardized.…”