IS THERE A RIGHT TO PRIVACY?

It is widely held that there is a legal right to privacy that plays such a central role in a number of important US Supreme Court decisions. There is however a great deal of dispute about whether there is a moral right to privacy and if there is, what grounds the right. Before this can be determined, we must be clear about the nature of privacy, something that is not clearly understood and that, as we shall see, is often confused with the right to privacy. I shall begin with a critical discussion of various views about the nature of privacy. I shall then present my own account, and show how it meets the objections that have been raised against other views. Lastly, I shall close with a discussion about whether privacy is a moral right.     

Biobank research and the right to privacy

What is privacy? What does privacy mean in relation to biobanking, in what way do the participants have an interest in privacy, (why) is there a right to privacy, and how should the privacy issue be regulated when it comes to biobank research? A relational view of privacy is argued for in this article, which takes as its basis a general discussion of several concepts of privacy and attempts at grounding privacy rights. In promoting and protecting the rights that participants in biobank research might have to privacy, it is argued that their interests should be related to the specific context of the provision and reception of health care that participation in biobank research is connected with. Rather than just granting participants an exclusive right to or ownership of their health information, which must be waived in order to make biobank research possible, the privacy aspect of health information should be viewed in light of the moral rights and duties that accompany any involvement in a research based system of health services.     

Glass Panels and Peepholes: Nonhuman Animals and the Right to Privacy

In this paper, I defend the claim that many sentient nonhuman animals have a right to privacy. I begin by outlining the view that the human right to privacy protects our interest in shaping different kinds of relationships with one another by giving us control over how we present ourselves to others. I then draw on empirical research to show that nonhuman animals also have this interest, which grounds a right to privacy against us. I further argue that we can violate this right even when other animals are unaware that we are watching them.     

Privacy Rights,and Why Negative Control is Not a Dead End: A Reply to Munch and Lundgren

Lauritz Munch and Björn Lundgren have recently replied to a paper published by us in this journal. In our original paper, we defended a novel version of the so-called ‘control theory’ of the moral right to privacy. We argued that control theorists should define ‘control’ as what we coined ‘Negative Control’. Munch and Lundgren have recently provided a range of interesting and challenging objections to our view. Independently of each other, they give almost identical counterexamples to our definition of Negative Control. In this comment, we show that while the counterexamples are genuine counterexamples, they do not force us to abandon the idea of Negative Control. Furthermore, we reply to two additional objections raised by Lundgren. One of these replies involves giving a new account of what the relation is between the concept of privacy and the right to privacy.

     

The Right to Privacy,Control Over Self-Presentation,and Subsequent Harm

Andrei Marmor has recently offered a narrow interpretation of the right to privacy as a right to having a reasonable amount of control over one's self-presentation. He claims that the interest people have in preventing others from abusing their personal information to do harm is not directly protected by the right to privacy. This article rejects that claim and defends a view according to which concerns about abuse play a central role in fleshing out the appropriate scope of a general right to privacy.     

从婚检看隐私权与知情权的冲突与协调

医生为当事人进行婚检,当发现其中一方患有性病等疾病时,告知是否会涉及到隐私权与知情权的问题,就隐私权与知情权的冲突与协调问题进行了探讨.     

患者隐私杈的法学思考

结合法学理论、医疗实践和目前患者隐私权的法律保护现状,就侵权行为、民事责任的认定以及隐私权的限制等问题予以理论阐释,并提出了切实可行的保护措施,如建立健全相关法律法规、医务人员要增强法律保护意识等,以期为患者隐私权的保护提供有益的参考。     

浅议侵害患者知情同意权的性质及赔偿

知情同意是患者自主权的重要体现,侵害患者知情同意权是引发医惠纠纷的常见原因。知情同意权是患者身体权、隐私权、财产权和支配权的集中体现,对患者知情同意权的侵害直接表现为对患者身体权、隐私权或财产权的侵害,医疗机构应该承担相应的精神损害赔偿、财产损害赔偿的责任。     

临床隐私保护的案例分析

通过明确医疗活动中病人隐私权的涵义,结合案例,分析新形势下医疗活动中医院、医务人员应如何保护病人的隐私,防止病人隐私权受到侵犯。     

关于临床实践教学中患者隐私权的调查与分析

临床实践教学中患者隐私权的界定与保护一直是舆论界和学术界争论的问题之一.通过发放调查问卷,综合分析患者、医学生及带教医生对这一问题的观点,为解决这一争议进行了理性的思考,并给出了合理的建议.     

Government Surveillance and Why Defining Privacy Matters in a Post‐Snowden World

There is a long‐running debate as to whether privacy is a matter of control or access. This has become more important following revelations made by Edward Snowden in 2013 regarding the collection of vast swathes of data from the Internet by signals intelligence agencies such as NSA and GCHQ. The nature of this collection is such that if the control account is correct then there has been a significant invasion of people's privacy. If, though, the access account is correct then there has not been an invasion of privacy on the scale suggested by the control account. I argue that the control account of privacy is mistaken. However, the consequences of this are not that the seizing control of personal information is unproblematic. I argue that the control account, while mistaken, seems plausible for two reasons. The first is that a loss of control over my information entails harm to the rights and interests that privacy protects. The second is that a loss of control over my information increases the risk that my information will be accessed and that my privacy will be violated. Seizing control of another's information is therefore harmful, even though it may not entail a violation of privacy. Indeed, seizing control of another's information may be more harmful than actually violating their privacy.     

Divine omniscience,privacy, and the state

Traditional theism teaches that God engages in a relentless form of observation for every human being. If, as is widely supposed, humans have a right to privacy, then it seems that God constantly violates this right. In this paper we argue that there is both a defensible philosophical excuse and justification for this infringement. We also argue that this defense is extensible to human social and political contexts; it provides the vital elements of a theory of just privacy infringement. This theory is broadly compatible both with major forms of political theory (except anarchistic ones) and with the main conceptions of privacy defended in recent philosophical and jurisprudential literature.     

人权视野下的个人健康权与选择权

从人权的角度看,个人健康权也是一种个人选择权,因为健康本来就是属于个人的。个人健康选择权在属性上,属于一种消极性、否定性和自由性的权利。个人健康选择权主要包括健康生活方式、治疗方式、保健方式、健康状态（水平）、健康隐私以及医疗保障组织选择。农村新型合作医疗是带有合作组织的性质的一种组织,它的推行,应当充分尊重农民自愿参加的选择权,不宜按照某个计划目标推行。     

Do Children Have Privacy Rights in the Classroom?

Arguing that everyone has a right to privacy as control overaccess to `intimate' aspects of one's life, this author draws on thework of Julie Inness to discuss children's rights to privacy inclassrooms. Even if it is agreed that pupils should exercise this right,a central point is that there may be moral or other value considerationsthat justify setting the right aside. Among selected complexities, animportant extension is the right to psychological processes throughwhich learners acquire new knowledge.     

Audience surveillance and the right to anonymous reading in interactive media

The proliferation of interactive media has provided corporations with an unprecedented ability to collect information about individuals’ media consumption habits. This ability of corporations is often reinforced by the rhetoric of “consumer sovereignty,” whereby individuals are misled into entrusting a considerable amount of information about their daily activities in exchange for increased convenience. The purpose of this paper is to explain the ways in which the information that individuals reveal to content and technology providers is subject to the scrutiny of external constituencies. More importantly, this paper, through an analysis of legal precedents, will demonstrate that the right to read anonymously is an important corollary of freedom of speech and that the ability of corporations to share information about individuals’ media consumption habits threatens this right. His research interests include privacy, digital rights management systems, and tensions that exist between privacy rights of individuals and intellectual property. An earlier version of this article was presented at the America: Visions and Divisions Conference, Austin 2003. The author would like to thank Oscar H. Gandy and Daniel P. Hillyard for his close reading of this article and helpful suggestions.     

患者隐私权的研究现状与保护进展

患者隐私权是患者的一项重要人格权。世界范围内病人权利运动的广泛开展及公民个人隐私保护意识的逐渐增强,使患者隐私权越来越受到关注。目前学者们对患者的隐私和隐私权看法各异,现行法律也没有统一明确的界定。但国内外对患者隐私权的研究与保护都有不同程度的关注与进展,并在法律上予以体现。     

Raz on the Right to Autonomy

Abstract: In The Morality of Freedom, Joseph Raz argues against a right to autonomy. This argument helps to distinguish his theory from his competitors'. For, many liberal theories ground such a right. Some even defend entirely autonomy‐based accounts of rights. This paper suggests that Raz's argument against a right to autonomy raises an important dilemma for his larger theory. Unless his account of rights is limited in some way, Raz's argument applies against almost all (purported) rights, not just a right to autonomy. But, on the traditional way of limiting accounts like his, Raz's account actually supports the conclusion that people have a right to autonomy. So, unless there is another way of limiting his account that does not have this consequence, Raz's argument against a right to autonomy does not go through.     

反思医院泄露病人隐私现象

医院泄露病人隐私现象,是阻碍医患关系的和谐发展的绊脚石,是一种医疗领域人文缺失的表现.作为医院要设身处地的多为患者考虑,把尊重病人隐私当成一种常态,作为病人、家属及探视者,要自觉形成保护他人隐私的公德意识.     

湖北省保健干部健康状况主要影响因素分析

临床见习对整个医院医学体系维持、运行和发挥功能起着很重要的作用,但在具体实践中与患者的隐私权发生冲突时,又该如何保护患者的隐私权?以案件为例进行伦理分析,并通过伦理论辩求证"尊重自主原则"是保护患者隐私权的主要原则。     

Privacy as a value and as a right

Conclusions Knowledge of others, then, has value; so does immunity from being known. The ability to extend one's knowledge has value; so does the ability to limit other's knowledge of oneself. I have claimed that no interest can count as a right unless it clearly outweighs opposing interests whose presence is logically entailed. I see no way to establish that my interest in not being known, simply as such, outweighs your desire to know about me. I acknowledge the intuitive attractiveness of such a position; but my earlier discussion concluded that the value of privacy is ease, and the value of knowledge is understanding - and it's not obvious that either outweighs the other. Nor is it obvious that the freedom and autonomy which result from the power to limit what others know is more significant than the freedom and autonomy which result from the power to extend one's knowledge. I believe the intuitive attractiveness of the belief that privacy values outweigh knowledge values lies in the entirely correct belief that a society without any privacy would be unpleasant. But a society without mutual knowledge would be impossible.I conclude therefore that there is no right to privacy nor to control over it. Nevertheless, each of these things is a good, and a good made possible (given the presence of other people) by social structures. A desirable society will provide both privacy and control over privacy to some extent. Nothing in my analysis helps determine what the proper extent is, nor what areas of life particularly deserve protection. Those who would argue that privacy and control over it are entailed by respect for persons should, I think, choose instead some particular areas central to being a person, to counting as a person, and then show how one is less likely to exercise one's capacities there fully without privacy or without control over it. Although Gerstein's attempt fails because he inaccurately defines intimacy as a kind of absorption and incorrectly opposes absorption with publicity, I think it is the kind of attempt which must be made. Furthermore, he has probably chosen the right area of life - if anything has a special claim to privacy it is probably the union between people who care for one another. The value of being together alone may be more significant than the value of being alone, if only because words and actions are public while thoughts are not. But I will not try to develop that argument here.In any case both privacy and control over it are social goods; on egalitarian grounds they should, ceteris paribus, be equally available to everyone. This helps explain the dehumanizing effect of institutions which provide no privacy at all- prisons and some mental institutions. It is not so much that the inmates are totally known; it is rather that those who know them are not so fully known by them; further, that the staff has a great deal of control over what they disclose of themselves, and the inmates very little. The asymmetry of knowledge in those institutions is one aspect of the asymmetry of power; the completely powerless are likely to feel dehumanized.My analysis also helps account for the wrongness of covert observation. It is not simply that the observer violates the wishes of the observed, for the question is whose wishes trump. The observer is violating the justified expectations of the observed: expectations supported by weighty social conventions. These have more moral weight than simple desires do. The peeping torn is violating a convention which structures the distribution of knowledge, a convention from which he benefits. Without it his own activities might well be impossible. He might be more easily caught; or his victim, less trusting, might choose houses without windows. More deeply, the thrill of what he is doing depends on the existence of the convention. Even morally permissible excitement - the suggestiveness of some clothing- would disappear without conventions about nudity. Presumably, too, there are elements of his own personal life for which he values his privacy. He is on grounds of justice obligated to observe the rule which makes his benefits possible.(Some claims to privacy result from personal predilections, rather than from convention. Parent describes a person who is extremely sensitive about being short, for instance, and does not want his exact height to be common knowledge. The grounds for these claims are obviously different from those I've been discussing. The grounds are the moral obligation not to cause needless pain, or, if the information was given in confidence, to keep one's promises.)Although there is no right to privacy or to control over it as such, there is a right to equality of consideration and to a just distribution of benefits and burdens. To put it another way: there is no natural human right to privacy or to control over it; but a good society will provide some of each, and justice requires that the rules of a good society be observed.

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