The debate on the ethics of privacy has been mainly dominated by Western perspectives, to the exclusion of broader ethical theories and socio-cultural perspectives. This imbalance carries risks; transplanted ethical norms and values can collide with those of the communities in which they are deployed. The consequent homogenization might also represent a missed opportunity to enrich and develop the current paradigm of privacy protection so as to effectively face new technological challenges. This article introduces and discusses the sub-Saharan philosophy of (...) Ubuntu and argues how its conception of the self helps to reinterpret some of the emerging issues revolving digital information technologies. To begin with, a general overview of the debate on the ethics of privacy is provided by distinguishing between individual and relational privacy. Also, the challenges of 'group privacy' are discussed. Then, we introduce basic principles of Ubuntu focusing on how these may have affected privacy conceptions and related legal practices. By outlining opportunities and risks of intercultural information ethics, we argue how Ubuntu—similarly to other communitarian moral philosophies—strengthens the development of the concept of relational privacy and, in particular, of group privacy. (shrink)

The increasing availability of digital data reflecting economic and human development, and in particular the availability of data emitted as a by-product of people’s use of technological devices and services, has both political and practical implications for the way people are seen and treated by the state and by the private sector. Yet the data revolution is so far primarily a technical one: the power of data to sort, categorise and intervene has not yet been explicitly connected to a social (...) justice agenda by the agencies and authorities involved. Meanwhile, although data-driven discrimination is advancing at a similar pace to data processing technologies, awareness and mechanisms for combating it are not. This paper posits that just as an idea of justice is needed in order to establish the rule of law, an idea of data justice – fairness in the way people are made visible, represented and treated as a result of their production of digital data – is necessary to determine ethical paths through a datafying world. Bringing together the emerging scholarly perspectives on this topic, I propose three pillars as the basis of a notion of international data justice: visibility, engagement with technology and antidiscrimination. These pillars integrate positive with negative rights and freedoms, and by doing so challenge both the basis of current data protection regulations and the growing assumption that being visible through the data we emit is part of the contemporary social contract. (shrink)