by James B. Rule
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Product Description
We are all accustomed to privacy horror stories, like identity theft, where stored personal data gets misdirected for criminal purposes. But we should worry less about the illegal uses of personal data, James B. Rule argues, and worry a lot more about the perfectly legal uses of our data by the government and private industry, uses which are far more widespread and far more dangerous to our interests than we'd ever suspect.
This provocative book takes readers on a probing, far-reaching tour of the erosion of privacy in American society, showing that we are often unwitting accomplices, providing personal data in exchange for security or convenience. The author reveals that in today's "information society," the personal data that we make available to virtually any organization for virtually any purpose is apt to surface elsewhere, applied to utterly different purposes. The mass collection and processing of personal information produces such tremendous efficiencies that both the public and private sector feel justified in pushing as far as they can into our private lives. And there is no easy cure. Indeed, there are many cases where privacy invasion is both hurtful to the individual and indispensable to an organization's quest for efficiency. Unrestricted snooping into citizens' personal finances really does boost the profitability of the consumer credit industry. Insurance companies really can and do make more money by using intimate private data to decide whom to insure, and what to charge. And as long as we willingly accept the pursuit of profit, or the reduction of crime, or cutting government costs as sufficient reason for intensified scrutiny over private citizens' lives, then privacy values will remain endangered.
Rule offers no simple answers to this modern conundrum. Rather, he provides a sophisticated and often troubling account that promises to fundamentally alter the privacy debate.
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Average Customer Review:
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Highly sophisticated analysis of a difficult problem, 2007-12-06
This is not the typical "the sky is falling" expose of the death of privacy in America. Although Rule is an advocate of strong privacy protections, he devotes considerable thought and attention to why such protections are desirable and to why we should even care that truthful information about us is being disseminated, as long as efficiency and security are increased.
Rule buttresses his analysis with a fascinating contrast between the Kantian imperatives (which argue for protection of privacy as a basic human right) and the pragmatism associated with thinkers like Auguste Comte (which argues for societal efficiency and the constant use of balancing tests). This is an extraordinarily accomplished aspect of the book, as is his in-depth history of the growth of the credit-reporting industry in America. Rule shows that this industry blossomed long before the computer did. Rule does not blame technology for the decline in privacy.
This book is more a philosophical, sociological, and economic inquiry than a call for immediate action. It is, however, quite powerful.
I would have given five stars were it not for several passages discussing the history of privacy laws in France, Australia, and other nations. It seemed as if Rule was merely displaying his erudition rather than adding much to his argument.
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