Nano-Technology and Privacy: On Continuous Surveillance Outside the Panopticon

Abstract

We argue that nano-technology in the form of invisible tags, sensors, and Radio Frequency Identity Chips (RFIDs) will give rise to privacy issues that are in two ways different from the traditional privacy issues of the last decades. One, they will not exclusively revolve around the idea of centralization of surveillance and concentration of power, as the metaphor of the Panopticon suggests, but will be about constant observation at decentralized levels. Two, privacy concerns may not exclusively be about constraining information flows but also about designing of materials and nano-artifacts such as chips and tags. We begin by presenting a framework for structuring the current debates on privacy, and then present our arguments.

Keywords:

• RFID
• privacy
• nano-technology
• surveillance
• panopticon

Notes

1. This is a so-called tort law or informational construal of privacy, which needs to be distinguished from constitutional privacy. EU data protection laws are primarily about informational privacy. See Sandel (1995) for a brief and very lucid account of the distinction between informational and constitutional (or decisional) privacy.

2. The conceptual confusion concerning privacy has been often observed. Many studies and articles on privacy start with the observation that privacy is extremely difficult to explicate and define. Judith Thomson (1975) stated that “perhaps the most striking thing about the right to privacy is that nobody seems to have any very clear idea what it is.” Posner (1978) observed that the concept is elusive and ill defined.

3. EPCglobal, URL: www.epcglobalinc.org, accessed May 17, 2007.

4. Yoshida, Euro bank notes to embed RFID Chips by 2005, EETimes, 19.12.2001, available at: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011219S0016, accessed May 17, 2007.

5. This is the Title of a study of the International Telecom Union; www.itu.int/internetofthings, accessed May 17, 2007.

6. We leave out of consideration here issues of so-called “constitutional or decisional privacy,” which comprises issues in US law that are concerned with the freedom of choice, e.g., regarding abortion and sexual behavior.

Van den Hoven, M.J., & Cushman, R. (1996). Privacy, health care data and information technology. The Journal of Information, Law and Technology, 3. Available: http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/elj/jilt/confs/3privacy/. New citation as at 1/1/04: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt/1996_3/hoven/, accessed May 17, 2007.