Defining Privacy

Abstract

This article begins with several attempts to define privacy. After an analysis of several competing conceptions a definition is offered and defended. Privacy may be understood as a right to control access to and use of both physical items, like bodies and houses, and to information, like medical and financial facts. Physical privacy affords individuals access control rights over specific bodies, objects, and places. Informational privacy, on the other hand, allows individuals to control access to personal information no matter how it is codified. The article concludes with numerous test cases for the account being offered.