The right to informational self-determination and the value of self-development. Reassessing the importance of privacy for democracy.
Abstract
In this contribution, we argue that privacy as a legal right is an instrument for fostering the specific yet changing autonomic capabilities of individuals that are, in a given society at a given time, necessary for sustaining a vivid democracy. What those needed capabilities are is obviously contingent both on the characteristics of the constituency considered, and on the state of the technological, economic and social forces that must be weighed against each-other through the operation of legislative balancing. Capacity for both reflexive autonomy allowing to resist social pressures to conform with dominant drifts, and for deliberative abilities allowing participation in deliberative processes are arguably among the skills that a vivid democracy needs citizens to have in the circumstances of our times. The importance of privacy today, it will be argued, derives from the support it provides for individuals to develop those aptitudes. Drawing on an avant-garde decision of 1983 by the German Constitutional Court acknowledging both the ‘intermediate’ value of privacy, and its ‘social-structural’ value, the paper aims at clarifying the conceptual intricacies characterising privacy and data protection, in view of the emerging challenges raised by the exponential development of information and communication technologies on the threshold of an “ambient intelligence era”.Suggested Citation
Antoinette Rouvroy and Yves Poullet. "The right to informational self-determination and the value of self-development. Reassessing the importance of privacy for democracy." Reinventing Data Protection. Ed. S. Gutwirth, P. De Hert, Y. Poullet. Springer, 2009.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/antoinette_rouvroy/7