Protecting Personal Information: The Right to Privacy Reconsidered

Description

The concept of privacy has long been confused and incoherent. The right to privacy has been applied promiscuously to an alarmingly wide-ranging assortment of issues including free speech, political consent, abortion, contraception, sexual preference, noise, discrimination, and pornography. The conventional definition of privacy, and attempts to evolve a 'privacy-as-a-fence' approach, are unable to deal effectively with the technological advances that have significantly altered the way information is collected, stored, and communicated. Social media such as Facebook pose searching questions about the use and protection of personal information and reveal the limits of conceiving the right to privacy as synonymous with data protection. The recent European Union's GDPR seeks to enforce greater protection of personal information, but the overlap with privacy has further obscured its core meaning. This book traces these troubling developments, and seeks to reveal the essential nature of privacy and, critically, what privacy is not.

Andrea Monti is Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the University of Chieti in Italy, and writer in the field of law and technology. Raymond Wacks is Emeritus Professor of Law and Legal Theory at the University of Hong Kong, and a leading international authority on privacy. He has published widely on the subject for four decades.

Overall, with all its historical references and comments from both jurisdictions (US / UK vs. Continental Europe), the book is worth reading about the long-unfinished policy debate on what the DS-BER and other laws should protect. (Translated from the original German) -- Dr Axel Spies * Zeitschrift fur Datenschutz * Protecting Personal Information is recommended reading for a range of scholars, particularly those working in privacy, media, information rights and cyber-law, all of whom will find intellectual treats to inform their work within. Overall ... this volume is a both a valuable attempt to provide clarity to this intriguing, sometimes perplexing area, and a reminder of why privacy is such a rich, fascinating and pervasively important subject. -- Rebecca Moosavian, Leeds University * International and Comparative Law Quarterly * [T]his book is a timely and welcome addition to the privacy canon as it purposefully, and successfully, goes against much of the privacy zeitgeist that has seen the concept used to deal with a myriad of issues. -- Peter Coe * Entertainment Law Review * Professors Monti and Wacks's work presents a new consolidation of different ways in which the law seeks to protect informational privacy. At the same time it offers a fresh approach to evaluating the objectives and boundaries of both the myriad of personal information laws currently in operation, and the underlying normative right to privacy itself. -- Jelena Gligorijevic * Cambridge Law Journal * Not to be missed for anyone who wants to fully understand and know how to deal with data protection beyond the slogans! (Translated from the original Italian) -- Marco Dal Monte * Amazon.it * At last a wonderfully readable analysis of the law and practice of the right of privacy. The book brilliantly explains the many aspects of the uses and abuses of our personal data. I found the authors' account of the digital revolution and the development of data protection up to and including the GDPR both fascinating and compelling. But there is much more to this excellent book: the media, political control, memory, the use of DNA, polling, profiling etc. I like the inclusion of a proposed law that could - and should - be adopted to protect our right of privacy. Strongly recommended. * Amazon.co.uk *