Recently I attended a Privacy Workshop hosted by NIST. One of the insights that emerged is the difference between security language and privacy language. For example while a phrase like “data actions” may from the security engineering perspective be useful and meaningful from the perspective of human beings this term is quite empty. Identity is emergent, tender, personal, lying in the field of emotions and life and death. Identity is alive. We should not be impatient that such an important subject is hard maybe beyond our ability at present to speak to. Privacy too is new and unformed.
I sensed that by the end of the NIST Privacy Workshop there was an awareness of the raw and vast scope of the problem.
When “data actions” means inferring what a human being is going to do or think next, monetizing that and generating revenue for a third party or releasing the recent date of your brother’s death for monetary purposes, the emotional danger of these “actions” emerges.
Context is a wonderful tool to help us. But some things carry across context. I think we should look for our humanity in every context and accept nothing less.