Privacy and the Internet

The project examines the threat to individual privacy by the Internet. By means of this global computer network personal data can be accessed easier and more efficiently than ever before. This has already led to intense international concern. Unfortunately, the ethical issue is often and wrongfully disregarded. The project wants to change this situation as it deals with the following questions: 1. In which respect is the Internet a threat to individual privacy? 2. Why is the threat to individual privacy by the Internet of ethical concern? 3. What must be considered when measures to protect individual privacy on the Internet are taken? In a first step, conceptual confusions will be eliminated and the object of the study will be clarified. The ordinary language term privacy is ambiguous. Therefore, it is unclear in which respect the Internet is a threat to individual privacy. Is someone`s individual privacy threatened, if (a) someone else learns something about her, (b) someone else learns something about her the former is not entitled to learn or (c) someone does not have control of who learns what about her? Without clarity on this level any further debate is complicated. Thereafter, the crucial question arises,. why a threat to individual privacy by the Internet is of ethical concern. Is it because without privacy (a) governmental and non-governmental organisations would gain too much power, (b) it would be impossible for people to develop close personal relationships, or (c) that people would not be respected as persons? These and other supposed connections are highly important from an ethical point of view. This project examines whether these connections exist and whether they justify the protection of privacy on the Internet. Moreover, when measures to protect individual privacy on the Internet are taken, it could be important from an ethical point of view that (1) certain rights can be waived and (2) that in ethical deliberations often more than one value or one norm is at stake. Therefore, in a third step it will be examined under which conditions privacy rights can be waived on the one hand, and which values and norms could outweigh the protection of privacy on the Internet on the other hand. As far as the second point is concerned, it may be crucial that the protection of privacy could be a threat to criminal prosecution. With a thorough examination of this topic the project will contribute to the ethical foundations on which political, legal and technical measures for the protection of individual privacy on the Internet are based. They will shape important conditions of future work and life.

The project "Privacy and the Internet" dealt with the question whether the Internet is a threat to individual privacy and why this could be of ethical concern. It turned out that in the light of different ethical principles several possibilities of gaining personal information on the Internet are ethically problematic. However, as in some respects the probability of causing harm has to be taken into account, it is still unclear how much ethical concern is appropriate. The topic was examined in the light of four ethical principles - or rather clusters of principles. These four principles are: the principle of autonomy, the principle of nonmaleficence, the principle of beneficence and the principle of justice. With the ethical evaluation of individual privacy and the Internet the first two principles proved to be most relevant. From the ethical point of view a threat of privacy has to be differentiated from a threat of rights to privacy or self- determination over states of privacy. From the view of the autonomy principle, namely, the demand after self- determination over privacy may be justified, not, however, after certain states of privacy. Thus, it does not concern to many whether somebody knows about their consumer habits, but whether they can decide, who knows about them and to which extent. Here a clear point of reference is given to the legal right to informational self- determination. On the other hand, from view of the principle of nonmaleficence it is already relevant that it is possible to collect a quantity of personal information with the help of the Internet which can be used to harm someone. This principle - simply expressed - demands that no harm or no wrong is caused. Differently than with data protection acts it is not only relevant here, for example, with the so-called cookies whether the data can be assigned clearly a person. By this assignment it would be covered by data protection acts. Ethically, it concerns also, which possibilities of harming people from the use of Cookies result. But, since with the principle of nonmaleficence the expected harm and thus probability considerations are to be considered, it is still unclear, how much concern from an ethical perspective is appropriate. Besides that, an investigation to data security and trustworthiness in e-commerce has shown that e-enterprises are to stress not only security, but also beneficence, which ranks among the indispensable components of trustworthiness. The importance of this result cannot be overestimated. Generally, it was important to connect academic research with practice and to communicate the results not only to academic circles, but also to a general public. However, in this respect it was found to be problematic that at the same time the scientific research had to be done and answers to urgent questions about the rapidly changing new information and communication technology had to be offered. It was felt a large challenge to connect these two different "cultures of time".