The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age

by Daniel J Solove

Overview

A startling account of personal data dossiers and the newest grave threat to privacy

Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, electronic databases are compiling information about you. As you surf the Internet, an unprecedented amount of your personal information is being recorded and preserved forever in the digital minds of computers. For each individual, these databases create a profile of activities, interests, and preferences used to investigate backgrounds, check credit, market products, and make a wide variety of decisions affecting our lives. The creation and use of these databases—which Daniel J. Solove calls “digital dossiers”—has thus far gone largely unchecked. In this startling account of new technologies for gathering and using personal data, Solove explains why digital dossiers pose a grave threat to our privacy.

The Digital Person sets forth a new understanding of what privacy is, one that is appropriate for the new challenges of the Information Age. Solove recommends how the law can be reformed to simultaneously protect our privacy and allow us to enjoy the benefits of our increasingly digital world.

This is the first volume in the series EX MACHINA: LAW, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814798461
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2004
Series:	Ex Machina: Law, Technology, and Society , #1
Pages:	283
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Daniel J. Solove is Associate Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is the co-author of Information Privacy Law.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
I Computer Databases
2 The Rise of the Digital Dossier
3 Kafka and Orwell: Reconceptualizing Information Privacy
4 The Problems of Information Privacy Law
5 The Limits of Market-Based Solutions
6 Architecture and the Protection of Privacy
II Public Records
7 The Problem of Public Records
8 Access and Aggregation: Rethinking Privacy and Transparency
III Government Access
9 Government Information Gathering
10 The Fourth Amendment, Records, and Privacy
11 Reconstructing the Architecture
12 Conclusion
Notes Index
About the Author
Contents

What People are Saying About This

Paul Schwartz

A must-read. The Digital Person is a far-reaching examination of how 'digital dossiers' are shaping our lives. Solove has persuasively reconceptualized privacy for the digital age.
—Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School

Jeffrey Rosen

Daniel Solove is one of the most energetic and creative scholars writing about privacy today. The Digital Person is an important contribution to the privacy debate, and Solove's discussion of the harms of what he calls 'digital dossiers' is invaluable.
—author of The Unwanted Gaze and The Naked Crowd

Pamela Samuelson

Solove's book is the best exposition thus far about the threat that computer databases containing personal data about millions of Americans poses for information privacy. Solove documents not only how ongoing advances in information technology is increasing this threat significantly, but also how governmental uses of private sector databases and private sector uses of governmental databases are further eroding the privacy-by-obscurity protection of yesteryear. Most importantly, Solove offers a conception of privacy that, if adopted, provides guidance about policies that would preserve information privacy as a social value.
—Chancellor's Professor of Law and Information Management at the University of California, Berkeley

Editorial Reviews

"Solove . . . truly understands the intersection of law and technology. This book is a fascinating journey into the almost surreal ways personal information is hoarded, used, and abused in the digital age."

The Wall Street Journal

"The Digital Person challenges the existing ways in which law and legal theory approach the social, political, and legal implications of the collection and use of personal information in computer databases. Soloves book is ambitious, and represents the most important publication in the field of information privacy law for some years."

Georgetown Law Journal

"This comprehensive analysis of privacy in the information age challenges traditional assumptions that breeches of privacy through the development of electronic dossiers involve the invasion of one’s private space."

Choice

"Solove ultimately is no & chicken little but an idealist of the best sort, concluding a positive role for law in the problem of privacy. Whether the world will leave Orwell and Kafka behind and evolve into Solove remains to be seen, but herein is offered a plan to achieve that objective."

Journal of Information Ethics

The Digital Person challenges the existing ways in which law and legal theory approach the social, political, and legal implications of the collection and use of personal information in computer databases. Solove’s book is ambitious, and represents the most important publication in the field of information privacy law for some years.”
• Georgetown Law Journal

From the Publisher

"Daniel Solove is one of the most energetic and creative scholars writing about privacy today. The Digital Person is an important contribution to the privacy debate, and Soloves discussion of the harms of what he calls 'digital dossiers' is invaluable."

Jeffrey Rosen