Why Privacy Matters

Neil Richards

Explains what privacy is, what it isn't, and why it matters
Dispels numerous myths about privacy, including the arguments that privacy is dead, that privacy is about ownership or control of data, and that young people don't care about privacy
Identifies and analyzes four core values that privacy protects—identity, freedom, protection, and trust—and why they are so necessary for a healthy society

Why Privacy Matters

Neil Richards

Description

A much-needed corrective on what privacy is, why it matters, and how we can protect in an age when so many believe that the concept is dead.

Everywhere we look, companies and governments are spying on us—seeking information about us and everyone we know. Ad networks monitor our web-surfing to send us "more relevant" ads. The NSA screens our communications for signs of radicalism. Schools track students' emails to stop school shootings. Cameras guard every street corner and traffic light, and drones fly in our skies. Databases of human information are assembled for purposes of "training" artificial intelligence programs designed to predict everything from traffic patterns to the location of undocumented migrants. We're even tracking ourselves, using personal electronics like Apple watches, Fitbits, and other gadgets that have made the "quantified self" a realistic possibility. As Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg once put it,
"the Age of Privacy is over." But Zuckerberg and others who say "privacy is dead" are wrong. In Why Privacy Matters, Neil Richards explains that privacy isn't dead, but rather up for grabs.

Richards shows how the fight for privacy is a fight for power that will determine what our future will look like, and whether it will remain fair and free. If we want to build a digital society that is consistent with our hard-won social values—fairness, freedom, and sustainability—then we must make a meaningful commitment to privacy. Privacy matters because good privacy rules can promote the essential human values of identity, power, freedom, and trust. If we want to preserve our commitments to these precious yet fragile values, we will need privacy rules. After detailing why privacy remains so important, Richards considers strategies that can help us protect it privacy from the forces that are working to undermine it. Pithy and forceful, this is essential reading for anyone interested in a topic that sits at the center of so many current problems.

Why Privacy Matters

Neil Richards

Why Privacy Matters

Neil Richards

Author Information

Neil Richards, Professor of Law, Washington University

Neil Richards is one of the world's leading experts in privacy law, information law, and freedom of expression. He holds the Koch Distinguished Professorship at Washington University School of Law, where he co-directs the Cordell Institute for Policy in Medicine & Law. He is also an affiliate scholar with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society and the Yale Information Society Project, a Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and a consultant and expert in privacy cases. Richards serves on the board of the Future of Privacy Forum and is a member of the American Law Institute. He is the author of Intellectual Privacy (Oxford).

Why Privacy Matters

Neil Richards

Reviews and Awards

"Neil Richards argues powerfully and eloquently about the importance of privacy in our lives and society. Insightful and nuanced, but also very accessible and clear, Why Privacy Matters is essential reading for anyone concerned about individual identity and freedom in a world where digital technologies are spinning out of control." - Daniel J. Solove, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School, and author of Understanding Privacy

"Why Privacy Matters is a terrific synthesis of the literature on privacy and surveillance. It is also an insightful contribution to our understanding of those profoundly important areas of life. Every page provides provocative grist for discussion. Richards's conception of 'the situated consumer' is especially valuable for helping scholars, policymakers, and citizens to think about the data-collection thicket that marks our twenty-first century." - Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Media Systems and Industries, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Voice Catchers: How Marketers Listen in to Exploit Your Feelings, Your Privacy, and Your Wallet

"Privacy is not dead: it's the only power we have in an accelerating information society. Neil Richards offers us not just a clear-sighted defense of privacy but also a wise and humane set of guidelines for protecting it. Have the 'Privacy Conversation' with Richards; you will emerge enlightened—and even inspired—about the choices we face and the rules we still can make to govern the flow of our information." - Sarah E. Igo, Professor of History, Vanderbilt University, and author of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America

"Neil Richards persuasively lays down precisely why we, humans, should and must continue to apply notions and standards of privacy and data protection—even in a seemingly all-surveilling world. While reinforcing the critical importance of current regulation, he provides timely reasoning as to why our societies and governments must equally and urgently apply energy to defining, evolving, and refining the rules that enable and maintain personal empowerment in this Information Age. This book nails the case for why 'privacy is dead' is a cop-out." - Helen Dixon, Data Protection Commissioner for Ireland