Privacy as currency: crime, information and control in cyberspace

Contemporary debates over the nature or extent of a ‘right to privacy’ are usually conducted at the level of politics, ethics and jurisprudence and have thus ignored a fundamental new development: the idea of privacy as a principle or right has been rendered moot by a number of new practical realities. The most important development is that privacy, or the information that constitutes it, has been transformed into an exchangeable currency. It is no longer a right in the classical sense of the word, where it served as a definition of the limits of the controlling power of the state; instead, it has become an adjustable quantity with different relative values for individuals, states and private enterprises. It may be exchanged for services, goods, personal safety, convenience or ease of use of existing services and goods. The citizen-consumer now has a quantity of ‘disposable privacy’ or ‘privacy capital’ that may be bartered for access to computer services, software or individual police protection; for the more rapid payment of welfare cheques or tax returns; to obtain new goods and services – air travel tickets, mortgage rates, motorcars, etc. – at lower prices; or for access to the virtual and physical premises where such services and goods can be obtained.