Data and Dignity - Why Privacy Matters in the Digital Age

However, and on the increase in the the practice of surveillance is the digital economy, in the widespread and on the increase in public sector as much as in the rest of the digital economy, in the private. [...] There are at least three factors to account for this situation: lack of understanding about the workings of the surveillance system and the life cycle of data; our love of convenience and the many affordances of digital technology; and our strong desire for recognition and control, which arguably underpin much of our activity on social media and our use of “smart” and self-monitoring devices. [...] In others words, privacy is determined in context and is a function of variables such as: the nature of the situation or context; the nature of the information in relation to that context; on what terms the information is shared; the roles of agents receiving information.14 Digital privacy is clearly a bundled concept; a container for a diverse and interrelated set of concerns regarding harms and. [...] The asymmetry between the individual “data subject” and the organisations who wield the data is stark, both in terms of the knowledge that the latter can derive about the former (as explained earlier in this essay) and the power, to influence and control, that accrues to such knowledge. [...] 67 Re-imagining privacy A Christian defence of privacy begins not in the name of a fundamental, absolute right to self-determination A Christian defence of of the individual but in the name of privacy begins not in the care for others, especially the most name of a fundamental, vulnerable in our midst.