wildercb/PrivacyTextBooks1.2 · Datasets at Hugging Face

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other set of problems is implicated by the processing of personal in
formation, and they are better understood with the metaphor of Franz
Kafka’s novel The Trial. In Kafka’s novel, an unwieldy bureaucratic
court system “arrests” the protagonist but refuses to inform him of the
charges. It maintains a dossier about him that he is unable to see. His
case is processed in clandestine proceedings.60 Kafka’s The Trial cap
tures a different set of problems than Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. In
The Trial, the problem isnotinhibited behavior but a suffocating pow
erlessness and vulnerability created by the court system’s use of per
sonal data and its exclusion of the protagonist from having any knowl
edge or participation in the process. T he harms consist of those
created by bureaucracies—indifference, errors, abuses, frustration,
and lack of transparency and accountability. For example, data mining
creates the problem of exclusion because people are often prevented
from having access and knowledge about how their information is
being used, as well as barred from being able to correct errors in that
data. Many data-mining programs are conducted in secret and lack
transparency. People often are denied the ability to correct errors or
to challenge being singled out on the basis of a particular profile.
There is little control over how long the data is kept and what it can
be used for. T he problem of secondary use is implicated because there
are few limitations on how data might be used in the future. There is
little public accountability or judicial oversight of data-mining pro
grams. T he Fourth Amendment, for example, primarily regulates the
collection of information and says little about what the government
can do with data (after it is already in the government’s possession.61
Data mining thus creates many information-processing problems that
lead to structural harms, such as vulnerability harms and power imbal
ances. Data mining allows executive officials and agencies relatively
insulated from public accountability to exercise significant power over
citizens.
Analyzing data mining with the aid of the taxonomy reveals the
manifold problems that data mining creates. T he taxonomy helps
prevent us from focusing on only a few of the problems to the ex
clusion of others. In short, the taxonomy provides us with a way to
evaluate activities such as data mining with greater comprehensive
ness and clarity.
Privacy: A New Understanding
195
Disclosure o f Surveillance Camera Footage
As demonstrated in the previous discussion, many cases involve a com
bination of several different kinds of privacy problems. Analyzing the
privacy issues in these cases involves understanding the distinctions be
tween these different problems. In Peck v. United Kingdom, a case be
fore the European C ourt of Human Rights (ECHR), a person at
tempted suicide by slitting his wrists with a knife on a public street. A
closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance camera was recording
him, and the person monitoring the camera notified the police. After
recovering from his injuries, he was dismayed to see a photograph of
himself carrying a knife, taken from the C C T V footage, appear in a
newspaper in an article titled “Gotcha.” T he article “referred to the
[person] as having been intercepted with a knife and a potentially dan
gerous situation being defused as a result of the C C T V system.” A tele
vision station broadcast footage from the C C T V recording of the inci
dent, but his face was not adequately obscured, and he could be
identified by people who knew him. T he BBC show Crime Beat also
broadcast the footage. Although the BBC had an agreement with the
government to obscure faces in the C C T V footage, it failed to ade
quately obscure his face, and it completely failed to mask his identity in
the trailers for its show. T he person sued the government, but the
High Court in England dismissed his case. He subsequently sought re
dress with the ECHR.62
According to the English government, there was no violation of pri
vacy because the plaintiff’s “actions were already in the public do
main,” and revealing the footage “simply distributed a public event to a
wider public.” T he EC H R disagreed. It noted that even if the surveil
lance of a person in public does not invade privacy, “the recording of
the data and the systemic or permanent nature o f the record” may
create a privacy problem. T he court observed that although he was in
public, he “was not there for the purposes of participating in any public
event and he was not a public figure.” T he extent to which he could be
observed by a passerby was much less than the extent to which he could
be observed from the footage made public!) T he court noted that the
government could have asked for the person’s consent to release the
video to the media or could have obscured his face in the images itself
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other set of problems is implicated by the processing of personal in

formation, and they are better understood with the metaphor of Franz

Kafka’s novel The Trial. In Kafka’s novel, an unwieldy bureaucratic

court system “arrests” the protagonist but refuses to inform him of the

charges. It maintains a dossier about him that he is unable to see. His

case is processed in clandestine proceedings.60 Kafka’s The Trial cap

tures a different set of problems than Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four. In

The Trial, the problem isnotinhibited behavior but a suffocating pow

erlessness and vulnerability created by the court system’s use of per

sonal data and its exclusion of the protagonist from having any knowl

edge or participation in the process. T he harms consist of those

created by bureaucracies—indifference, errors, abuses, frustration,

and lack of transparency and accountability. For example, data mining

creates the problem of exclusion because people are often prevented

from having access and knowledge about how their information is

being used, as well as barred from being able to correct errors in that

data. Many data-mining programs are conducted in secret and lack

transparency. People often are denied the ability to correct errors or

to challenge being singled out on the basis of a particular profile.

There is little control over how long the data is kept and what it can

be used for. T he problem of secondary use is implicated because there

are few limitations on how data might be used in the future. There is

little public accountability or judicial oversight of data-mining pro

grams. T he Fourth Amendment, for example, primarily regulates the

collection of information and says little about what the government

can do with data (after it is already in the government’s possession.61

Data mining thus creates many information-processing problems that

lead to structural harms, such as vulnerability harms and power imbal

ances. Data mining allows executive officials and agencies relatively

insulated from public accountability to exercise significant power over

citizens.

Analyzing data mining with the aid of the taxonomy reveals the

manifold problems that data mining creates. T he taxonomy helps

prevent us from focusing on only a few of the problems to the ex

clusion of others. In short, the taxonomy provides us with a way to

evaluate activities such as data mining with greater comprehensive

ness and clarity.

Privacy: A New Understanding

195

Disclosure o f Surveillance Camera Footage

As demonstrated in the previous discussion, many cases involve a com

bination of several different kinds of privacy problems. Analyzing the

privacy issues in these cases involves understanding the distinctions be

tween these different problems. In Peck v. United Kingdom, a case be

fore the European C ourt of Human Rights (ECHR), a person at

tempted suicide by slitting his wrists with a knife on a public street. A

closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance camera was recording

him, and the person monitoring the camera notified the police. After

recovering from his injuries, he was dismayed to see a photograph of

himself carrying a knife, taken from the C C T V footage, appear in a

newspaper in an article titled “Gotcha.” T he article “referred to the

[person] as having been intercepted with a knife and a potentially dan

gerous situation being defused as a result of the C C T V system.” A tele

vision station broadcast footage from the C C T V recording of the inci

dent, but his face was not adequately obscured, and he could be

identified by people who knew him. T he BBC show Crime Beat also

broadcast the footage. Although the BBC had an agreement with the

government to obscure faces in the C C T V footage, it failed to ade

quately obscure his face, and it completely failed to mask his identity in

the trailers for its show. T he person sued the government, but the

High Court in England dismissed his case. He subsequently sought re

dress with the ECHR.62

According to the English government, there was no violation of pri

vacy because the plaintiff’s “actions were already in the public do

main,” and revealing the footage “simply distributed a public event to a

wider public.” T he EC H R disagreed. It noted that even if the surveil

lance of a person in public does not invade privacy, “the recording of

the data and the systemic or permanent nature o f the record” may

create a privacy problem. T he court observed that although he was in

public, he “was not there for the purposes of participating in any public

event and he was not a public figure.” T he extent to which he could be

observed by a passerby was much less than the extent to which he could

be observed from the footage made public!) T he court noted that the

government could have asked for the person’s consent to release the

video to the media or could have obscured his face in the images itself

196

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