Abstract
This chapter discusses the cultural implications of privacy. The threat to privacy does not restrict itself only to the West, but as the technology is spreading to almost every corner of the globe, so is the threat. The chapter reviews some of the salient research on cultural responses to privacy. How does the Japanese culture, for example, deal with the issue of privacy? And what could the West learn from the Japanese in their responses to the technologies that could imperil their privacy, and what are their attitudes toward the problem?
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Notes
- 1.
In the US, the first census took place in the year 1790 in order to find out information about the number and make up of the US population so that the nation’s capacity for industry and military capabilities. Census needs to be taken every 10 years in the US. See Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses from 1790 to 2000, available at http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/pol02-ma.pdf.
- 2.
Jim Moor, “Toward a Theory of Privacy in the Information Age,” p. 204.
- 3.
Jim Moor, “Toward a Theory of Privacy in the Information Age,” pp. 202–205.
- 4.
Jim Moor, “Toward a Theory of Privacy in the Information Age,” pp. 208–209.
- 5.
Jim Moor, “Toward a Theory of Privacy in the Information Age,” p. 208.
- 6.
Jim Moor, “Toward a Theory of Privacy in the Information Age,” p. 209.
- 7.
Adam D. Moore, “Privacy: Its Meaning and Value,” p. 222.
- 8.
Adam D. Moore, “Privacy: Its Meaning and Value,” p. 223.
- 9.
Adam D. Moore, “Privacy: Its Meaning and Value,” p. 215.
- 10.
W.A. “Parent, Privacy, Morality and the Law,” p. 276.
- 11.
See Charles Fried, The Anatomy of Values, p. 209.
- 12.
Alan F. Westin, “Social and Political Dimensions of Privacy,” p. 434.
- 13.
Alan F. Westin, “Social and Political Dimensions of Privacy,” p. 434.
- 14.
Judith Jarvis Thomson, “The Right to Privacy,” pp. 305–306.
- 15.
Thomas Scanlon, “Thomson on Privacy,” p. 315.
- 16.
Helen Nissenbaum, Privacy in Context, op. cit., p. 3.
- 17.
G. M. Tamás, “From Subjectivity to Privacy and Back Again,” p. 220.
- 18.
Lü, Yao-Huai, “Privacy and Data Privacy Issues in Contemporary China.”
- 19.
See Lü, Yao-Huai, “Privacy and Data Privacy Issues in Contemporary China,” and Ess “Lost in Translation,” especially p. 2 and note 3.
- 20.
Krisana Kitiyadisai, “Privacy Rights and Protection: Foreign Values in Modern Thai Context.”
- 21.
Krisana Kitiyadisai, “Privacy Rights and Protection: Foreign Values in Modern Thai Context.”
- 22.
Makoto Nakada and Takanori Tamura, “Japanese Conceptions of Privacy: An Intercultural Perspective.”
- 23.
Makoto Nakada and Takanori Tamura, “Japanese Conceptions of Privacy: An Intercultural Perspective” and Charles Ess, “Lost in Translation.”
- 24.
For a discussion of Kant’s view on privacy and private thoughts and protection of freedom of expression, see Capurro et al. (2013).
- 25.
Nakada and Tamura, “Japanese Conceptions of Privacy: An Intercultural Perspective.”
- 26.
See Lü, Yao-Huai, “Privacy and Data Privacy Issues in Contemporary China” for an example. See also Charles Ess’s discussion of Chinese examples in his Digital Media Ethics, 2nd Edition (Cambridge: Polity, 2014), pp. 66–68.
- 27.
- 28.
Krisana Kitiyadisai, “Privacy Rights and Protection: Foreign Values in Modern Thai Context,” p. 18.
- 29.
Pirongrong Ramasoota Rananand, “Information Privacy in a Surveillance State,” pp. 125–128.
- 30.
Pirongrong Ramasoota Rananand, “Information Privacy in a Surveillance State,” p. 126.
- 31.
Pirongrong Ramasoota Rananand, “Information Privacy in a Surveillance State,” p. 124.
- 32.
Pirongrong Ramasoota Rananand, “Information Privacy in a Surveillance State,” p. 125.
- 33.
Lü Yao-Huai, “Privacy and Data Privacy Issues in Contemporary China,” p. 8.
- 34.
Manuel E. Maisog, “Personal Information Protection in China,” available at http://www.huntonfiles.com/files/webupload/PrivacyLaw_Personal_Information_Protection_in_China.pdf [retrieved July 8, 2015], p. 3.
- 35.
Lü Yao-Huai, “Privacy and Data Private Issues in Contemporary China,” p. 13.
- 36.
Charles Ess, Digital Media Ethics, 2nd Ed., pp. 66–68.
- 37.
See Charles Ess, Ibid. The references to Sui and Greenleaf are Graham Greenleaf, “Asia-Pacific Data Privacy: 2011, the Year of Revolution?,” UNSW Law Research Paper No. 2011-29, available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1914212 (retrieved October 1, 2015), and S. Sui, “The Law and Regulation on Privacy in China,” paper presented at the Rising Pan European and International Awareness of Biometrics and Security Ethics (RISE) Conference, Beijing, October 20–21, 2011.
- 38.
Makoto Nakada and Takanori Tamura, “Japanese Conceptions of Privacy: An Intercultural Perspective.”.
- 39.
Makoto Nakada, “Japanese Conceptions of Privacy,” p. 28.
- 40.
Nakada and Tamura, “Japanese Conceptions of Privacy,” p. 32.
- 41.
Nakada and Tamura, “Japanese Conceptions of Privacy,” p. 33.
- 42.
Mizutani, Dorsey and Moor, “The Internet and Japanese Conception of Privacy,” p. 124.
- 43.
Mizutani, Dorsey and Moor, “The Internet and Japanese Conception of Privacy,” p. 122.
- 44.
In fact Mizutani’s conception of the minimal and the rich levels of culture bears some resemblance to my conception, derived from Michael Walzer in Thick and Thin: Moral Arguments at Home and Abroad (Notre Dame), that the impact of information and communication technologies on cultures could be seen at two levels, namely the thick and the thin one (See Soraj Hongladarom , “Global Culture, Local Cultures and the Internet,” in Ess and Sudweeks 2001). The thick corresponds to the rich level and the thin to the minimal level here.
- 45.
Yohko Orito and Kiyoshi Murata, “Privacy Protection in Japan: Cultural Influence on the Universal Value,” available at http://www.kisc.meiji.ac.jp/~ethicj/Privacy%20protection%20in%20Japan.pdf (retrieved July 8, 2015).
- 46.
Orito and Murata, “Privacy Protection in Japan.”
- 47.
Orito and Murata, “Privacy Protection in Japan.”.
- 48.
See Capurro (2013).
- 49.
Capurro, “Intercultural Aspects of Digitally Mediated Whoness,” p. 231.
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Hongladarom, S. (2016). Cultural Attitudes Toward Privacy. In: A Buddhist Theory of Privacy. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0317-2_3
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