I argue that there is nothing wrong with perfect voyeurism , covert watching or listening that is neither discovered nor publicized. After a brief discussion of privacy I present attempts from Stanley Benn, Daniel Nathan, and James Moor to show that the act is wrong. I argue that these authors fail to make their case. However, I maintain that, if detected or publicized, voyeurism can do grave harm and to that extent should be severely punished. I conclude with some thoughts (...) on the stubborn intuition that perfect voyeurism is wrong despite the absence of harm. (shrink)

This article argues that the self-management of one’s privacy is impossible due to privacy externalities. Privacy externalities are the negative by-product of the services offered by some data controllers, whereby the price to ‘pay’ for a service includes not just the provision of the user’s own personal data, but also that of others. This term, related to similar concepts from the literature on privacy such as ‘networked privacy’ or ‘data pollution’, is used here to bring to light the incentives and (...) exploitative dynamics behind a phenomenon which, I demonstrate, benefits both the user and the data controller to the detriment of third-party data subjects. Building on these novel elements and on the relevant concepts and examples found in the existing literature, this article draws a comprehensive picture of the phenomenon, and offers two promising paths to address it—better enforcing the principle of data protection by design and by default, and relying on the framework of joint controllership. (shrink)

What is privacy? What does privacy mean in relation to biobanking, in what way do the participants have an interest in privacy, (why) is there a right to privacy, and how should the privacy issue be regulated when it comes to biobank research? A relational view of privacy is argued for in this article, which takes as its basis a general discussion of several concepts of privacy and attempts at grounding privacy rights. In promoting and protecting the rights that participants (...) in biobank research might have to privacy, it is argued that their interests should be related to the specific context of the provision and reception of health care that participation in biobank research is connected with. Rather than just granting participants an exclusive right to or ownership of their health information, which must be waived in order to make biobank research possible, the privacy aspect of health information should be viewed in light of the moral rights and duties that accompany any involvement in a research based system of health services. (shrink)