Ethics Assignment #4 Privacy Reading Post

Do we have a moral obligation or duty to protect our privacy?   Why or why not? Is this obligation collective, individual, or both?  

Yes, we do. I should be in our best interested to claim to have some separation from this fast-paced world we live in. Also, as discussed in [Excerpts from “The Right to Privacy” - Warren and Brandeis] while societies have grown bigger and develop a higher sense of collective consciousness, they have also come to the conclusion that separation from the outside stressors and obligations outside of home could be beneficial. We have so many stressors and so much noise, literal and figurative -noise as in lack of peace one way or the other and not necessarily due to acoustics. Another reason is to protect our families and friends from possible situations that could endanger our loved ones. Parents have a moral obligation to their children and their relatives. Each individual carries the duty to protect their personal life and what they do in private.

We have a moral obligation to protect our privacy, in an era where social networking sites leave little to the imagination thanks to their users and their information exchange. Technology offer solutions to existing problems and problems created by technology itself but also limit the level of privacy of its users. (An ethical duty to protect one’s own information privacy? P4p5.- I The great information privacy giveaway- 5p). We have trackers in our phones, our web history could be investigated by private companies, hackers, the Government and so on to take advantage of the data found or for mere monitoring purposes. (Protecting One’s Own Privacy in a Big Data Economy P1p1-2) We share too much with all the version of social media available to us. At the end of the thought we think a lot about many mundane things throughout the day but then when a security breach occurs and our FBs are hacked or we no longer have access to a social media profile for x or y reason we realize how vulnerable we have become by oversharing.

We see how everyday privacy is sacrificed for the benefit of a greater good. A good example is a scrutiny that each of us goes through while traveling overseas. Right before boarding the planes we have to walk through a “mantrap” (learned this term reading chapter 2) with a security system to scan our bodies and make sure we don’t carry illegal drugs, guns and other possible items that could be used to endanger the lives of the people in the airport, the people boarding the plane or even the people located wherever the final destination the airplanes is supposed to arrive to. Being able to travel abroad, express ourselves, show our pictures and videos of what we do at home as a hobby are just very innocent ways to let strangers in, that could be in fact friendly strangers or strangers with the purpose of using the information obtained from us to their benefit and our detriment.

 

It’s definitely an umbrella system. This is how I picture it: This is an obligation we have to take on as individuals to support each other as a society. (Protecting One’s Own Privacy in a Big Data Economy - IV. Acting Individually, Acting Collectively P2p2). It’s not enough to seek after our privacy, without seeking after our loved one’s wellbeing and privacy and at some point in this symbiosis our desires to have privacy and respect to our peers will overlap with each other individual in the pursuit of the same goal for themselves and their family. (An ethical duty to protect one’s own information privacy? - III. The challenge of moral theory P7p3).