Privacy Nicks: How the Law Normalizes Surveillance

101 Washington University Law Review 717 (2024)

73 Pages Posted: 14 Mar 2023 Last revised: 5 Mar 2024

See all articles by Woodrow Hartzog

Woodrow Hartzog

Boston University School of Law; Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society

Evan Selinger

Rochester Institute of Technology - Department of Philosophy

Johanna Gunawan

Northeastern University Khoury College of Computer Sciences

Date Written: March 10, 2023

Abstract

Privacy law is failing to protect individuals from being watched and exposed, despite stronger surveillance and data protection rules. The problem is that our rules look to social norms to set thresholds for privacy violations, but people can get used to being observed. In this Article, we argue that by ignoring de minimis privacy encroachments, the law is complicit in normalizing surveillance. Privacy law helps acclimate people to being watched by ignoring smaller, more frequent, and more mundane privacy diminutions. We call these reductions “privacy nicks,” like the proverbial “thousand cuts” that lead to death.

Privacy nicks come from the proliferation of cameras and biometric sensors on doorbells, glasses, and watches, and the drift of surveillance and data analytics into new areas of our lives like travel, exercise, and social gatherings. Under our theory of privacy nicks as the Achilles heel of surveillance law, invasive practices become routine through repeated exposures that acclimate us to being vulnerable and watched in increasingly intimate ways. With acclimation comes resignation, and this shift in attitude biases how citizens and lawmakers view reasonable measures and fair tradeoffs.

Because the law looks to norms and people’s expectations to set thresholds for what counts as a privacy violation, the normalization of these nicks results in a constant renegotiation of privacy standards to society’s disadvantage. When this happens, the legal and social threshold for rejecting invasive new practices keeps getting redrawn, excusing ever more aggressive intrusions. In effect, the test of what privacy law allows is whatever people will tolerate. There is no rule to stop us from tolerating everything. This Article provides a new theory and terminology to understand where privacy law falls short and suggests a way to escape the current surveillance spiral.

Keywords: privacy, surveillance, information privacy law, technology law, Fourth Amendment, normalization, biometrics, facial recognition, internet of things

Suggested Citation

Hartzog, Woodrow and Selinger, Evan and Gunawan, Johanna, Privacy Nicks: How the Law Normalizes Surveillance (March 10, 2023). 101 Washington University Law Review 717 (2024), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4384541 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4384541

Woodrow Hartzog (Contact Author)

Boston University School of Law ( email )

765 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.bu.edu/law/profile/woodrow-hartzog/

Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society ( email )

Palo Alto, CA
United States

HOME PAGE: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/profile/woodrow-hartzog

Evan Selinger

Rochester Institute of Technology - Department of Philosophy ( email )

92 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623-5670
United States
(585) 475-2531 (Phone)

Johanna Gunawan

Northeastern University Khoury College of Computer Sciences ( email )

220 B RP
Boston, MA 02115
United States

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