5 - What Information Privacy Protects

Summary

Chapter 5 provides a conceptual overview of information privacy law to examine what it seeks to protect. Different concepts of information privacy provide alternative ideas about what its legal manifestations should protect. Moreover, information privacy concepts are themselves permeated, and permeate, broader concepts of privacy. The chapter identifies four conceptual themes that underpin information privacy’s development through coverage of key authors: Individual control over personal information; informational access and personal autonomous growth; a broader social and relational context; and privacy as a structural problem of power. The control concept is dominant as evident by its implementation as information privacy law. However, all themes are important regarding a stronger role for information privacy’s relational context and power-related elements.