The Costs of Privacy Survelliance: Surveillance and Reputation in America (Social Institutions and Social Change) [Hardcover]

Steven L. Nock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 1993 | ISBN-10: 020230454X | ISBN-13: 978-0202304540

The Costs of Privacy challenges the prevailing belief that Americans enjoy less privacy today than in the past. Weaving together historical and contemporary data, the author argues that over the past two centuries changes in familial living arrangements, particularly the growing number of "emancipated" adults living outside of families, have actually enabled Americans to enjoy more privacy than ever before. Because it isolates people, however, that greater privacy creates a greater number of strangers. How, then, in an anonymous society of strangers, is trust possible? What enables both individuals and institutional actors to trust others they have never met and do not know? Nock suggests an answer: that surveillance establishes and maintains reputations, allowing us to trust strangers. Nock 1 defines, such surveillance functionally, as overt and conspicuous forms of credentials (e.g., credit cards, educational degrees, drivers' licenses), and/or ordeals (e.g., lie detector tests, drug tests, integrity tests). He shows that the increasing use of such credentials and ordeals, over time, is correlated with the number of strangers in our society. Surveillance and anonymity are costs of greater personal privacy; the corresponding changes in laws and customs have important consequences for our society. The concluding chapter focuses on new methods of surveillance that can record genetic and biochemical information about people. Unlike traditional bases of reputation, genetic information makes it possible to predict future physical illnesses, mental health problems, and various types of behavior. These predictive forms of surveillance may seem attractive because they make it possible to enter into risky relationships with many people and trust them, without ever getting to know them. That, argues Nock, may be the greatest cost of privacy.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 149 pages
• Publisher: Aldine Transaction (December 31, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 020230454X
• ISBN-13: 978-0202304540
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,389,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Handy book for understanding things affecting privacy., January 9, 1998

By 

J. D. Abolins (Lawrenceville, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Costs of Privacy Survelliance: Surveillance and Reputation in America (Social Institutions and Social Change) (Paperback)

Costs of Privacy, first of all, is not a book advocating privacy per se or helping people to preserve it. In fact, it present some claims that can be jolting to people concerned about diminishing privacy.

But these claims are helpful for understanding some of the practices that affect privacy, including credentials such as drivers licenses and ordeals such as drug tests and polygraphs. Nock gives historical background on the changing views of privacy. Seeing how various practices came to be helps us to better understand how to make our way through the ongoing tussle for the future of privacy.

Basic claims:
Privacy is diffent than secrecy. The distinction is based upon whether or not the info is legitimate to keep from disclosure.
Privacy as we know exists only in a society where there are many strangers. The drawback is the difficulty of establishing reputations and trustworthiness. Anonymity (not knowing one another)is one of the costs of privacy.
Therefore, various means of surveillence, including credentials and ordeals, are used in attempt to establish some means of determining trustworthiness. In fact, surveillence of some kinds is needed to preserve privacy. (!!!)

Towards the end of the book, Nock examines genetic testing and speculates upon its impact on privacy.

Very useful book. While I don't agree with everything Nock says, it is a book I use frequently in my online writings about privacy and information issues.

J.D. Abolins
Meyda Online - Dimensions of Privacy page.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surveillance and the Privacy Paradox, April 12, 2001

By 

Stephen Cobb (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Costs of Privacy Survelliance: Surveillance and Reputation in America (Social Institutions and Social Change) (Paperback)

You can find a lot of books that talk about protecting privacy, hiding assets, disguising identity, and keeping your life secret. But not many people have thought deeply about why you might want to do this and what the cost to society would be if all its members were anonymous strangers.

This book makes a valuable contribution to the increasingly shrill privacy debate, offering a well-reasoned explanation of why we need surveillance, in terms of knowledge of others and their credentials, in order to establish trust. In other words, the paradox between wanting institutions and organizations to treat us with respect as individuals, to be sensitive to our particular wants and needs, while we remain unwilling to hare with others what those needs are.

Nock highlights the fact that we will not trust others without knowledge of them, so information about others is required before meaningful interaction can be sustained. He examines the needs we have to interact with others at various levels of trust to show the levels of knoweldge about others which such trust requires.

While some of the language in this book applies a philosophical twist to terms we are accusotmed to using in more concrete ways, it is wonderfully thought-provoking. I rate it a "must read" if you want to have a well-rounded perspective on privacy in the information age.