We have drawn attention earlier in the book to the fact that computers allow the freezing and manipulation of digital information, and the linking and reproducing of it, on an unprecedented scale. This has considerable and serious consequences. A few examples of the issues that we face give a feel for the implications.
People's emails contain a great deal of a confidential and personal nature. Yet reading emails that have not been encrypted is a straightforward task. In particular, a Service Provider could in principle use people's emails to provide enormously valuable commercial information about them and their companies. The legal status of emails - whether their privacy is protected - remains unclear in the UK at present (mid-1999), though legislation has been promised in this area.
Web sites log the host from which each page was requested, making it possible to identify (by host) who is reading which parts of a site. Matching these data to log-in patterns (or intelligent use of interaction with the host) would allow site operators to track exactly who is looking at which pages. This not only allows (say) an online bookstore to track which books you are buying, but also those which you are considering buying.
Integrating the information from various rich information sources can give a quite precise picture of a person's life. Imagine an integration of bank, credit card, phone, loyalty card and web access information: how valuable to a prospective employer, an insurance salesman, or a thief. It could be wonderfully useful to the Government to ensure information about a citizen is kept up to date with regard to benefits, tax, liabilities. It also raises deep-seated issues about freedom, security and protection of the individual from the powers of the State.
Once a 'digital memory' has been created it has the potential to be indefinitely persistent. At present, it takes somewhat determined investigation to find a youthful indiscretion of a respected public figure, but if every public document (including court records) were immediately available online only a few clicks would be necessary. As a counterpart, digital memory can be erased completely. So cyberspace gives the potential for perfect forgetfulness, too: information could disappear without trace.
These examples imply that developments in cyberspace will have effects on our privacy. What kind of good is privacy? Surely, if God is omniscient, then we can have no privacy before God. A Samaritan woman discerned Jesus' unique status because he 'told me everything I ever did' (John 4.29 NEB). If God already knows all our thoughts and actions, then maybe the privacy that we seek and affirm in others is only a conditional good, appropriate for the fallen sinful world.
However, even if privacy were only a conditional good, because we are sinful, but not of inherent value, there are strong arguments based on the primacy of love for protecting it in other people. The mere fact that someone would be upset if certain personal information were revealed or used is, other things being equal, an argument against revealing or using such information.
There are some other considerations which suggest a more positive connection between privacy and the human condition.
Email privacy and logging web access both raise issues of security. We can readily imagine situations where a plausible defence of particular instances of email interception, for example, might be made. We will return to these questions in the next section in this chapter. Web site owners might well justify logging and storing access and activity information in order to improve their service to customers, by providing better or more accessible and relevant material. This justification lies in the benefit to the user, but the user is not being asked what he or she would count as a benefit, and it might well be better if suitable opportunity for feedback (by questionnaire, say) were provided. There are clearly important issues regarding the extent to which this information can be disclosed to third parties. Our view is that there should be a strong presumption of non-disclosure.
With regard to the integrating of personal information, there seem to be two concerns which may arise. The concern of direct abuse of this information (by a thief, for example) is obvious enough. There is a further danger: the fuller the information picture, the 'data shadow', the greater the chance of a person being implicitly identified with that data shadow. A person is not simply the sum of recorded facts about them, and there could be a danger of 'reducing' our perception of someone to what is recorded about them. This relates to matters discussed in Chapter 3.
The persistence of data presents a genuinely difficult issue. Any derogatory information about someone should only be posted on the web (or otherwise made available to the digital world) with circumspection, and should be removed when it is no longer necessary or appropriate for it to be displayed. Indiscriminate archiving of past information should also be discouraged, irrespective of concerns regarding copyright. Yet such archiving is remarkably simple to achieve, and digital records may be copied to a large number of locations. If someone is found to have been wrongfully imprisoned for an offence, can we be sure that significant cyber-records of the original conviction will all be either erased or linked to the new information of the person's innocence? Caution in archiving is clearly necessary. It may also be necessary to learn how to live in a world that has forgotten how to forget, and Christians may have much to teach about forgiveness.
Retail services are being offered in cyberspace through online catalogues, with the opportunity for customers to make 'virtual inspection' of available products. In so-called 'recommender systems' customers are encouraged to comment on products so that they help each other. This increases customer satisfaction, because they are more likely to order what they want, and because it gives them a real sense of participation. Some suppliers add features that are not possible in conventional mail order: as the online customer fills in their forms, they are told that other people with similar interests also like certain other products, which are then being recommended to the customer. Such systems are often uncannily accurate, and people often welcome their helpfulness, rather than worrying about the intrusion into their privacy.
Why is there an intrusion into privacy? Surely recommending books or sock colours is excellent? Well, yes. But suppose we were at the online pharmacist and ordered a contraceptive, and the system said that similar customers liked to go to such-and-such a doctor, and so on. Here, far more obviously, there are issues of privacy. Also, as the services become more sophisticated, it is clear that the recommendations will probably encourage people to make popular or profitable rather than wise decisions.