Customer Reviews

The Digital Person: Technology And Privacy In The Information Age

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

How many times have we heard the expression that "you are what you eat"? But what if that were extended to what you drive, what you read, where you work, what you spend, and much more. What if this information was being gathered by unknown people for uncertain purposes in digital format, would this "digital dossier", which might be used to make decisions about you, be accurate? Well they do exist and are assembled and used by people and groups that you may not even know about, even though the use may have a direct impact on your life.

So you might then ask if existing legal frameworks provide any protection or recourse to keep a handle on the information? In The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age (2004, New York University Press, 282 Pages, ISBN 0814798462), George Washington University Law Professor and privacy law expert Daniel J. Solove weaves history, legal precedents, changes in society/technology, and discussions of practical business/marketing into a narrative that is not only easy to read and understand, but one that must be read by anybody who wants to discuss and understand privacy in a meaningful way.

Solove, who also co-authored Information Privacy Law in 2003, starts out by laying the groundwork for the privacy discussion. He outlines how information databases came to be and how they have evolved. He then provides the basis for the metaphor he wants to present, showing that it is not the Orwellian world of 1984 we need to fear, but the world imagined by Kafka in The Trial that should be of concern to individuals. Having never read The Trial, I found this discussion to be fascinating and in some ways changed some of my thoughts on the issue, while reenforcing others.

The meat of the book, which is built on his metaphor, is that current privacy laws in the United States have not kept up with technology, and that unless they are changed, individuals will continue to be helpless in controlling their information (which may or may not be private). As he points out, consumers are always at the wrong end of one-sided contracts when it comes to information surrounding their information. Acknowledging that the information genie is indeed out of the bottle, Solove hones in on discussions about what the laws need to address, but how this may not be so easy. The key is defining what is meant by "Secrecy" and "embarrassment". Also key is that the risks we face, given that so much of our lives is already catalogued, are the result of indifference or mistakes on the part of the people who hold the data. It is also the fact that this indifference and chances for error are magnified because there is no market or economic incentive for companies to have privacy policies that work for the consumer and have some teeth.

He develops a framework for legal changes that centers on the 4th and 5th amendments of the constitution, providing examples how in some areas the courts have evolved as technologies change. But part of the challenge, as he points out, is the patchwork of laws in the United States that conflict, overlap, and in sone case are too inclusive in their implementation.

It is unclear from this book how the changes he proposes can be accomplished. Consumers are not united enough and do not have deep enough pockets to fight for the change. If the book has only one shortcoming, it would in my opinion be lack of discussion of this imbalance. In light of this, it only rates 5 stars instead of 5++.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book should be read by anybody who wants to gain a solid foundation to understand and discuss privacy issues in a meaningful manner.

The Scorecard

A Double Eagle on a long Par 5 playing into the wind.

At long last . . . a book about privacy that doesn't just whine about how privacy is "dead"! Solove offers real solutions to real problems. The book is both frightening and optimistic. Solove talks about the efforts underway by big corporations and big government to collect our data and how its use is harming people. These developments are astonishing, and the book describes them in a way that opens your eyes to the big picture of what is going on. His discussion of why we should protect privacy is the best argument I've yet heard. Solove doesn't dumb down his discussion like many other books do. Nor does he throw his hands up in the air and say that our privacy is all gone. Solove is very specific about the changes he proposes in the law. I appreciated the fact that Solove offers real solutions. This is a deeper book than most books on privacy. If you want to learn why privacy should be protected and how, you should definitely read this remarkable book.
Sue Soltis
Colorado

This is the third book in my latest readings on post-9/11 citizen privacy and personal security issues. O'Harrow's "No Place To Hide" and Rosen's "The Naked Crowd" preceded this one. All have been informative, but this book by Daniel Solove is the crème de la crème. It is five stars with a bullet.

It is scholarly in content without being esoteric as it wrestles with privacy law and privacy reconceptualization issues. Solove is a rare lawyer with the organized mind of an engineer, a "law engineer." He delineates the emerging problems attendant to digital dossiers while concisely laying out and discussing the pertinent law, privacy issues and conceptual models of privacy protection. He is able to deftly juggle Kafka, Huxley and Orwell's "privacy & surveillance" writings while seamlessly marrying them and the other digital privacy elements to privacy law history running from Warren and Brandeis' "The Right To Privacy," through the Privacy Act of 1974 up to COPPA.

Like many of us "digital persons" pursuing life, liberty and happiness out in the U.S. hinterlands, Solove recognizes "the government's increasing access to our digital dossiers is one of the most significant threats to privacy of our times...". He wisely understands that the "law crafting" solution must be an adaptively dynamic one and proposes an architectural solution that is process oriented.

This book makes it clear that SOLOVE KNOWZ PRIVACY LAW!

There are quite a few current books on privacy (eg: Database Nation, Soft Cage, Unwanted Gaze, No Place to Hide, War on Our Freedoms, The Right to Privacy, and others). Having read these and a few others, I believe this is the best.

This book distinguishes itself by its balanced, mature perspective. It provides all the requisite background on both governmental and business actions that have destroyed privacy. It outlines and summarizes privacy law in a non-technical but pertinent manner. Where this book pulls ahead of others is in its recognition that what "privacy" is about is the balance of power in society between individuals on one hand, and large institutions such as government and business on the other. Solove recommends a number of realistic, do-able solutions founded in a basic philosophy of law.

I wish there were some evidence (any evidence!) that Solove's ideas were influencing our society's direction in this area, but I see none. Nevertheless, Solove has taken the important first step of analyzing the problem and offering a well-reasoned solution.

Solove has created a comprehensive and easy to read review of the emergent threats to personal privacy in the information age, and has succeeded in reconceptualizing privacy given the growing pervasiveness and power of digital dossiers. The Digital Person is divided into three parts: Part I discusses the emergence of digital dossiers, the threat they pose to personal privacy, how both the marketplace and the current legal architecture fail to adequately respond to these threats, and Solove's call for a new legal architecture. Suitable to be read on its own, Part I is a convincing and authoritative argument of Solove's thesis. Part II shifts to a discussion of how the increased use and access to public records, documenting one's life "from birth to death," contribute to the problem of digital dossiers when this information flows from the public to the private sector. And Part III considers data flows in the opposite direction - from the private sector to the government - as the vast digital dossiers being constructed by businesses are becoming more attractive to law enforcement agencies.

There are some great reviews below, so I will not repeat them. Amazon is getting to the point now where it is almost essential to read all of the reviews as a pre-cursor to buying and reading the book.

This book was instrumental, after I bought it, in pointing me to the preceding work by David Brin, "The Transparent Society," and I found it useful to read that book first.

The two key points in this book that make it a notable contribution are:

1. Best available review of applicable laws; and

2. Superb expansive discussion of privacy violation that emerge not just for deliberate abuse and invasion, but from "careless unconcerned bureaucracies" with little judgement or accountability.

IDEA for Amazon: connect with the Institute of Scientific Information, and start showing us new books that cite existing books. I would love to be able to "fast forward" from this book to the "best in class" books that cite this book so that I could buy the best most recent book (I buy and read in threes on most topics). Amazon has become a major intellectual force, and is my starting point for every issue (Google is for fast looks, Amazon is for deep looks; I hope that one day they merge with Wikipedia).

"The knowledge which can be gained from the study of this text is found in the placement that Solove's topic has within the broader debate surrounding the role of knowledge in society. Solove's points chime in right around the time we recognize that computers have great potential for advancing the spread and use of productive information. Computers provide tools capable of tapping into dispersed knowledge; but, we must simultaneously recognize that they are not miracle cures to be implemented from central positions of authority. The knowledge which they coordinate is valuable only in so far that it is dispersed and subjective. The hazardous notions of knowledge, in the Hayekian sense, would be those which claim to be more complete and universally applicable than they actually are. When based upon such false notions, actions stand to be erroneous, misinformed, and the host to unintended consequences."

[..]

This is a brilliant book. Professor Daniel Solove presents an alarming account of the way technology is changing our world - how we are living with a digital replica of ourselves in computers. He explains the problems of privacy with lively and fascinating discussions of literature, from Orwell to Huxley to Kafka. The book makes reading about technology and law come alive. This is one of the first books on privacy that explains the law in great detail. Surprisingly, there is quite a lot of law that attempts to protect privacy. But as Solove persuasively argues, it is not succeeding. This is a really informed discussion of the developments threatening our privacy and what the law has done and hasn't done about it. Solove has written an absolutely terrific book!

"The Digital Person: Technology & Privacy in the Information Age," Daniel Solove, NY, NYUniv. Press, 2004 ISBN: 0-8147-9846-2, HC, 228/283 (Notes 37 pg., Index 16 pg.), 9 1/4" x 6 1/8"

Assoc. Prof. of Law & author of "Information Privacy Law", Solove thoroughly covers the history, current status & provides some law recommendations for coping better with rapidly changing practices of information gathering, its useage & its intrusions into our privacy.

Historically traceable, perhaps, to 1st U.S. census asking 4 questions in 1790, & hundreds of queries by 1890 including those on disease, infirmities & wages, data sorting was processed by punch card readers (forerunner of IBM). The "New Deal" Social Security System of 1935 assigned 9-digit U.S. citizen identifier numbers (SSNs) & useage of SSNs popularized with computerization in 1960's by both private & governmental (city/state/federal) sectors but provoked early concerns on privacy invasions.

Noting 'information breeds information', data analysis & number crunching fostered creation of 'digital dossiers' on millions of citizens via accumulation/assemblage of 'bits of information' from private, public & governmental sources. The privacy invasion affects our freedom, diminishes our power & allows for abuses including identity theft, blacklisting, profiling, self-incrimination & serious data errors (the latter which may be impossible to exterpate). Databases, some 2000 at federal level, are valuable comodities bought, sold, & traded between the private, public & governmental sectors including DMV, SS, PE's credit-card issuers, banks, websites, employers, etc. for spying, credit checks, targeted marketing, & diverse legal/illegal purposes, etc. Several paradigms including "Big Brother" of "1984" are discussed in detail.

Solove discusses stealth data collections relative to the 1st, 4th & 5th Ammendments, providing ample case law citations & recommendations for reducing one's own vulnerability to identify theft, & he confides of perceived, needed changes in current laws. An important read (not overtly technical but perhaps wordy or repetitious in sections) about what appears purposely not taught ouside of law school. This week several states announced that video (CCTV) surveillance of all business will be mandated - with specific mention of City of Santa Monica amongst the first & some vague rumors that CCTV may be proposed for all dwellings.

Electronic data-mining systems are gathering and processing information about consumers 24 hours a day, tracking Internet surfing, probing personal files and public records, and creating an overall database for each individual containing details on everything from activities and interests to credit and product purchasing habits. The creation and use of the 'digital dossiers', as author Daniel J. Solove calls them, has largely gone unregulated, and the purpose of his The Digital Person: Technology And Privacy In The Information Age is to explain how these digital profiles are a threat to privacy. From government tapping to business purposes, chapters describe the nature of the data, its sources, and how it's used in profiling attempts.