Abstract
The paper extends previous accounts of informational privacy as a contextual notion. Where previous accounts have focused on interpretations of the privacy context itself as being contextual and open for negotiation and interpretation, this paper extends those analyses and shows that personal information itself is in fact best understood as contextual and situational—and as such open for interpretation. The paper reviews the notion of information as it has been applied in informational privacy and philosophy of information, and suggests that personal information ought to be regarded as communicative acts. The paper suggests a reconceptualization of informational privacy from having its focus on controlling, limiting, and restricting access to material carriers of information to a focus on a regulation of the use, analysis, and interpretation of personal information.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agre, P. E. (1994). Surveillance and capture: Two models of privacy. The Information Society, 10(2), 101–127.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine.
Buckland, M. (1991). Information as thing. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 351–360.
Cornelius, I. (2002). Theorizing information for information science. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 43, 393–425.
Dretske, F. (2008). Epistemology and information. In P. Adriaans & J. van Benthem (Eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of science (Vol. 8, pp. 29–47)., Philosophy of information Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Floridi, L. (2005). The ontological interpretation of informational privacy. Ethics and Information Technology, 7(4), 185–200.
Floridi, L. (2008a). Foundations of information ethics. In K. E. Himma & H. T. Tavani (Eds.), The handbook of information and computer ethics (pp. 3–23). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Floridi, L. (2008b). Trends in the philosophy of information. In P. Adriaans & J. van Benthem (Eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of science (Vol. 8, pp. 113–131)., Philosophy of information Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Floridi, L. (2010). Information. A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Fox, C. J. (1983). Information and misinformation: An investigation of the notions of information, misinformation, informing, and misinforming. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Goguen, J. A. (1997). Towards a social, ethical theory of information. In G. Bowker, L. Gasser, S. L. Star, & W. Turner (Eds.), Social science research, technical systems and cooperative work: beyond the great divide (pp. 27–56). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Grice, H. P. (1957). Meaning. In H. P. Grice (Ed.), Studies in the way of words (pp. 213–223). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Grice, H. P. (1967). Logic and conversation. In H. P. Grice (Ed.), Studies in the way of words (pp. 22–40). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Grice, H. P. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Halavais, A. (2015). Bigger sociological imaginations: Framing big social data theory and methods. Information, Communication & Society, 18(5), 583–594.
Lyon, D. (2001). Surveillance society: Monitoring everyday life. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Mai, J.-E. (2013). The quality and qualities of information. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(4), 675–688.
Mai, J.-E. (forthcoming). Big data privacy: The datafication of personal information. The Information Society, 32(3).
Martens, B. V. D. V. (2015). An illustrated guide to the infosphere. Library Trends, 63(3), 317–361.
Mathiesen, K. (2015). Toward a political philosophy of information. Library Trends, 63(3), 427–447.
Mayer-Schönberger, V., & Cukier, K. (2013). Big data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work and think. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Nunberg, G. (1996). Farewell to the information age. In G. Nunberg (Ed.), The future of the book (pp. 103–138). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Peters, J. D. (1988). Information: Notes toward a critical history. Journal of Information Inquiry, 12(2), 9–23.
Solove, D. J. (2008). Understanding privacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Solove, D. J. (2013). Privacy self-management and the consent dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 126, 1880–1903.
Strawson, P. (1970). Meaning and truth. In A. P. Martinich (Ed.), The philosophy of language (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Tavani, H. T. (2008). Informational privacy: Concepts, theories, and controversies. In K. E. Himma & H. T. Tavani (Eds.), The handbook of information and computer ethics (pp. 131–164). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Warren, S., & Brandis, L. (1890). The right to privacy. In D. Adam (Ed.), Moore Information ethics: Privacy, property, and power. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Wilson, P. (1977). Public knowledge and private ignorance. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mai, JE. Personal information as communicative acts. Ethics Inf Technol 18, 51–57 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-016-9390-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-016-9390-4