Privacy & Confidentiality

In today's IT-driven, surveillant society, privacy and confidentiality issues arise with regard to the use of new media. Privacy and surveillance issues are primarily concerned with about personal information. It is practically impossible to operate online without being tracked in numerous ways and by numerous entities. Electronic records have broken through physical restraints, and they are easy to create, store, maintain, manipulate, search, and more. The distribution of information can take place with or without the knowledge of the person whom the information is about. Norms with regard to appropriate or inappropriate kinds of information and distribution of information are both formal and informal, and changes in information norms are often triggered by a change in technology. Helen Nissenbaum's account of privacy as contextual integrity states that when information norms are violated, an individual's privacy is violated. One of the main features of IT-configured activities where ethical issues seem to arise is in its distinctive identity conditions. Anonymous posts are not always anonymous. Internet-based communication is mediated, and anonymity is contextual and relational. The degree of anonymity one has in any situation depends on the ways in which information can be linked with other information. In the end, the flow of information through platforms fostered by new media shapes organizational practices, and these practices powerfully affect the lives and experiences of individuals.