Surveillance vs. Privacy: Effects and Implications

Cohen, Julie E.

Surveillance vs. Privacy: Effects and Implications

Cambridge Handbook of Surveillance Law, eds. David Gray & Stephen E. Henderson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 455-69

17 Pages Posted: 3 Aug 2018

See all articles by Julie E. Cohen

Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown University Law Center

Date Written: October 31, 2017

Abstract

The ongoing transition from industrialism to informationalism has prompted repeated predictions of the death of privacy. Digital information networks and the granularity of the information they collect and transmit seem inconsistent with the preservation of older, analog conceptions of private information and private space. Digital information networks, however, are designed with particular purposes in mind. To decode and evaluate the rhetoric of doomed privacy, one must understand the purposes that current patterns of development are thought to serve. That inquiry requires consideration of the theory and practice of surveillance. This chapter takes up that project, exploring the nature of surveillance, its effects on self-development, and the societal implications of those effects.

Keywords: Surveillance, Privacy

JEL Classification: K10, K30, K40

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Cohen, Julie E., Surveillance vs. Privacy: Effects and Implications (October 31, 2017). Cambridge Handbook of Surveillance Law, eds. David Gray & Stephen E. Henderson (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 455-69, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3212900