Comparing Internet Privacy in the European Union and the United States :: Internet Private Censorship Essays

Comparing Internet Privacy in the European Union and the United States Introduction Most people regard one's right to privacy as a fundamental right. But how do we define "privacy?" According to Basse, there are three aspects to privacy: freedom from intrusion, control of information about one's self, and freedom from surveillance.1 Certainly, we cannot expect complete privacy in all of these aspects at all times. However, technological advances are making it increasingly difficult for individuals to determine when they can and cannot expect privacy, and what degree of privacy they can expect. For example, at one time a personal conversation taking place far from prying ears would have afforded the participants a very high expectation of privacy. This was no longer the case once directional microphones were developed. Similarly, satellites in orbit high overhead can take pictures of places that had previously been considered private (and do so with astounding resolution). GPS-compatible cellular phones can be used to pinpoint the location of the person carrying them. Computers are another technological advancement that has threatened the privacy of an individual's personal information. In 1977, it was announced that computer matching, which takes previously unrelated files, would be used to reduce welfare abuse.2 Computer matching is now commonplace both within the government and in the private sector. While this type of matching would have been possible without the use of computers (by hand matching hard-copy file, for example), computers have made it practical, relatively easy and inexpensive. With the Internet, organizations can transfer data from one point in the world to another easily and almost instantly, further facilitating the practice of computer matching. In addition, with the rise in popularity of the World Wide Web, the Internet has become not only an information exchange medium, but also an information collection medium. Consider browsing the World Wide Web. Simply by visiting a web page, one has already told the owner of that web site quite a bit of information about one's self. Web browsers routinely send web servers information as part of the hypertext transport protocol (http) request. This information can include things such as the date and time of the visit, the web browser's IP address, the type of web browser and operating system, and the URL of the web page previously visited. In addition, web servers can send "cookies," small files containing identifying information, back to the web browser. In this way, a web server can now uniquely identify repeat visitors to a web site.