Privacy Advocacy from the Inside and the Outside: Implications for the Politics of Personal Data Protection in Networked Societies

Abstract

For the most part, privacy and data protection laws arose not through grassroots pressure but through interactions between governmental and business elites in the context of broader international harmonization efforts. Thus, civil society activists have rarely been seen as a client constituency with equivalent weight to governmental and business interests. There is evidence, however, that the privacy advocacy network is becoming more influential in comparative context. In most countries, a network of advocates has emerged with a relatively distinct profile from the “official” data protection authorities. Individual advocates play several conflicting roles and often exist within groups with wider civil liberties, human rights, digital rights, or consumer interests. Those at the center of the privacy advocacy network possess a set of core beliefs about the importance of privacy, and as one passes to the outer edges the issue becomes more and more peripheral. Privacy advocacy is beginning to occur from both the inside, and the outside, representing an important shift in the evolution of privacy protection policy both nationally and internationally, and producing difficult tensions between the two networks.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Christopher Parsons for some of the research assistance upon which this article is based, as well as to two anonymous reviewers for Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis.

Notes

1. There is at least one exception. The “Pirate Party” in Sweden has placed privacy at the top of its reform agenda. See: http://www2.piratpartiet.se/international/english

2. The original project was based on a set of key informant interviews with over 30 privacy advocates in different countries. These interviews, in common with “snowball-sampling” then led to others in the network. The project also relied on the analysis of statements about privacy on the websites of privacy advocacy organizations.

3. That meaning is also implied in terms like “animal rights advocates” or “child protection advocates”.

4. A term coined by Davies at the first Computer, Freedom, Privacy (CFP) conference in 1991. See the report on Risks Digest at: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/11.39.html

5. A group called “Privacy Activism” was created for this very reason. http://www.privacyactivism.org

6. An example would be the small consulting company that was established by individuals within Privacy International. See: http://www.8020thinking.com/

7. A reasonably comprehensive listing is presented at: http://privacyadvocates.ca

8. Privaterra is a notable example: http://www.privaterra.org

9. The National Consumer Council in the UK and the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (Federation of German Consumer Organizations) are examples.

10. Germany has, in fact, seen some quite important civic mobilization in protest against excessive surveillance. In September 2007, more than 15,000 took to the streets of Berlin to protest the new Data Retention Directive. EDRI Gram, September 26, 2007. These impressions were provided by German groups such as Foebud (Interview, June 27, 2006) and Die Humanistische Union (Interviews, June 22, 2006).

11. An example would be the common reaction to the “Big Brother Awards” organized in many countries, and often attended by attempts to ridicule and satirize prominent politicians and corporate actors to attract media attention.

12. See: http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-564039

13. This point was made publicly by Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, at a forum for privacy advocates in Montreal, September 24, 2007.

14. At www.abika.com one can purchase background checks, personality profiles, search criminal records, tax records, vehicle license records, obtain DNA profiles and many others. She requested her own file from the company, was refused and filed a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. She submitted that Accusearch Inc.'s activities were contrary to PIPEDA and called upon the Commissioner to investigate. The Commissioner refused, indicating that she did have not have jurisdiction to investigate a company residing in another country. Lawson appealed to the Federal Court, which determined that the Commissioner did have jurisdiction, and was therefore obliged to investigate the complaint.

15. See: http://www.cippic.ca/en/projects-cases/privacy/pipeda-complaints/

16. The most encouraging signs of co-operation perhaps exist in Canada through the explicit attempts by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to fund non-profit research through its official “Contributions Program”.

17. Examples from the various conflicts of census data, ID cards, and Internet monitoring are provided in Chapter 5 of The Privacy Advocates.

18. See, http://epic.org/privacy/id-cards/ EPIC has also co-ordinated a broad-based campaign against full-body imaging at airports. See: http://privacycoalition.org/stopwholebodyimaging

19. The Madrid Privacy Declaration is at: http://thepublicvoice.org/madrid-declaration/

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Colin J. Bennett

Colin Bennett received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the University of Wales, and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since 1986 he has taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria, where he is now Professor. His research has focused on the comparative analysis of surveillance technologies and privacy protection policies at the domestic and international levels.