Privacy and Technology

Abstract

The definition above nicely encapsulates two of the intertwined meanings of ‘privacy’. In the first sense—physical seclusion—the level of privacy in modern developed societies is extraordinarily high by historical standards. We take it for granted that a bed in a hotel will be occupied by either one person or a couple—not by several strangers. At home, few of us expect to share either bed or bedroom with our children. In these and a variety of other ways, increased physical privacy has come as a byproduct of increased wealth.