Final Ethics Project

For my final project I would like to focus on the new privacy rules that the FCC has proposed for ISPs. The proposal would require ISPs to first obtain the customers' permission before using and sharing their data. Under this proposal they would still be able to collect and share the data with other communications-related affiliates without permission. They wouldn't be able to share that data with non communications partners without permission. The ISPs handle all of our network traffic which gives them access to significant amounts of information about us based on our activities online. The FCC proposal has now been approved by a 3-2 Democratic majority. My chosen philosopher is Alan Westin. If Westin was still alive today he would support the FCC's privacy proposal. He believes that we should have a choice as to when and with whom we share our information. In his work he stated "I have identified four psychological conditions or states of individual privacy - solitude, intimacy, anonymity and reserve... In these states of privacy, the individual's needs are constantly changing...Such changing personal needs and choices about self-revelation are what make privacy such a complex condition, and a matter of personal choice." A prediction that he made about consumer privacy in his work is "I see major new legislation, enforcement, and litigation unfolding in the consumer privacy arena. This will lead businesses both off and on line to install comprehensive privacy management systems and to appoint privacy officers to administer compliance. Consumer marketing will move inexorably to a permission-based system, in which consumers exercise their choices as to how they are marketed to, in a mixture of opt-in and opt-out procedures based on the sensitivity of the data Easy-to-use individual privacy management software will be developed to allow consumer choices to be understood and carried out in both the offline and on venues.". Which in this case his prediction is true. I believe that the privacy proposal that the FCC has made for the ISPs is great we get to limit how and with whom they share our data. Like Westin I also believe that we should be given a choice. At the same time I think that if the ISPs really wanted they could set ridiculous terms so that the consumers would either have to opt-in on the sharing of data collected to third parties or go without internet since ISPs are essentially a monopoly. Given the results of Westin's survey/research on if respondents received HIPAA privacy notices. Westin had anticpated a yes response from well over 90% of respondents given the ubiquity of it. When 32% of the American public said that they never received a HIPAA privacy notice he found the results surprising and disturbing since he is sure that most of these people did have a privacy notice given to them but do not recall the paperwork as the privacy notice. Which leads me to believe that even if the ISPs sent out their privacy notices to their customers a lot of them wouldn't even know. Depending on ISPs go about getting a customers explicit opt-in consent they would still be able to gain a lot of money selling their data to third parties.

http://www.privacysummersymposium.com/reading/westin.pdf

https://patientprivacyrights.org/2005/02/testimony-of-dr-alan-f-westin-professor-of-public-law-government-emeritus-columbia-university-and-director-of-the-program-on-information-technology-health-records-and-privacy/