Article Privacy and social interaction

This article joins in and extends the contemporary debate on the right to privacy. We bring together two strands of the contemporary discourse on privacy. While we endorse the prevailing claim that norms of informational privacy protect the autonomy of individual subjects, we sup-plement it with an argument demonstrating that privacy is an integral element of the dynamics of all social relationships. This latter claim is developed in terms of the social role theory and sub-stantiated by an analysis of the role of privacy in intimate relationships, in professional relationships and in social interactions between strangers in public. We conclude by arguing that it is not always reasonable to assume a conflict between individual privacy on the one hand and society on the other. Legislators and participants in public debate also have to take into account the conse-quences of limiting privacy on social interaction and the integration of the society. Keywords Privacy, right to privacy, social interaction, social relations, surveillance Threats to and the protection of privacy have long been the subject of public and aca-demic debate. Until recently, this debate has mostly been conducted in terms of the lib-eral view of privacy. Its predominant focus has therefore been on the significance of privacy for individuals. The value of privacy has usually been justified by the individual interests and rights it protects, most importantly the protection of individual freedom and autonomy in liberal democratic societies.1 The focus on the individual in thinking about privacy has shaped approaches to conflicts between privacy and other rights and values. Both in academic and public debates, privacy has often conflicted with the interests of society. Consequently, protecting the privacy of individuals has often been seen as an obstacle to the pursuance of the interests of society as a whole. Corresponding author