#4 Privacy of Behaviour and Action

“This concept [privacy of behaviour and action] includes sensitive issues such as sexual preferences and habits, political activities and religious practices.” … “Privacy of behaviour means the person has a right to behave as she wants (to sleep in class, to wear funny clothes) so long as the behaviour does not harm someone else.” (Friedewald, 2013)

With the privacy of behaviour and action we are getting on the edge of our private space, getting closer to the semi-public and public zones. The key concept is that as long as we do not intrude other people’s lives it is our business what are we doing.

I love the phrase: “You do not have to be afraid, if you are not doing anything wrong.” Lovely. Cause it does have a certain logic behind it, doesn’t it? The interesting part is the “doing something wrong”. Who should be the judge of it? Me or you? Society? Legal authorities? State? What might be okay for someone, could be condemned by another. What is fine under current regime, could be a cause for persecution in another. Really, our behaviour is our private matter.

Of course in the end everyone talking about this type of privacy in connection to technology is mainly thinking about the time spent on the porn websites. What is the browser saving anyway? Is my IP address unique for me, well? Were the news about hacking into someone’s webcam just a hoax? Until we are living in a truly tolerant society (truly, truly tolerant), some behaviours should stay private.

References
- Finn, R. L., Wright, D., & Friedewald, M. (2013). Seven types of privacy. In European data protection: coming of age (pp. 3-32). Springer Netherlands.

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