Introduction – and the thesis
The call for the right of a private sphere is one of today’s human rights issues, and as such becoming louder and louder. Leaving aside if this is justified • while people die as consequence of violent conflicts, • while people do not have access to clean water, health care, education, etc., • while inequality is on the rise, another question is concerned with our possible misconception of the right to privacy:
1st by and large, we still lack a clear definition of the private sphere, i.e. a classification of what should be protected
2nd , equally lacking is a clear answer to the question what kind of intrusion is really problematic: • the collection of data, • a specific use of data • and/or the question of who uses the data, for which purpose and in which way the collection and use of data is controlled/monitored.
However, a question that is going even further concerns the private-public-divide. The thesis that will be discussed is:
the quest for the protection of the private sphere is [and needs to be] issued not primarily as a matter of intrusion but is consequence of the lack of a truly public sphere.
What, today, seems to be the public sphere is in fact the sphere of publicity and self-presentation. Self-presentation is very much private in the sense of encapsulating, cocooning, without engaging with the surrounding – or put differently: only using the surrounding as mirror. A truly public sphere would be different insofar as it is collaborative, relational: the public is shaped by the individual, as much as the individual is shaped by the public – all occurring in what is called uno-actu-principle.
At least for a substantial part, withdrawing into a private sphere is nothing else than: • refusing to accept responsibility; • avoiding a fair game.
However, there remains a challenge: it is not the protection of the private sphere but the provision of a fair battle ground.
Going too far?
Of course, the thesis will be perceived as bold, going too far: isn’t the permanent intrusion into the private sphere, taking very different forms, something that must worry us nearly every day. It is the experience of online shopping, nearly reaching the stage of predicted shopping; it is the experience of artificial intelligence, working with data we produce simply by existing and moving around, shaping our environment; it is the production of news and often fake news, reflecting the big data we produce instead of providing a picture of the reality; it is the permanent replication of what happens and how we act, discouraging unfolding free will, non-linear development and flexibility. Other ways of intrusion could be mentioned; however, too often we ignore the fact that the public sphere is increasingly – and again taking very different forms – shaped by uncontrolled excessive violence, hate speech, racism and other forms of ‘communication’ that disregards the right of people to move in public spheres without being assaulted. Moreover, this kind of intrusion goes even so far that it affects private life, victimising individuals and groups in a way that results in helplessness or aggressive counter-movements.
What is veiled by focussing on the dangers of datafication and its use as instrument of permanent surveillance is the underlying fact: the reshaping of the historical subject. Carissa Véliz speaks of the transformation of ‘citizens into users and data subjects’ (Véliz, Carissa, 2020: Privacy is Power; London: Bantam Press; Corgiu edition, 2021: 4), though at the end she then problematises the data-issue, not the transformation as the real problem. The ab-use of data depends on the loss of the public that is inevitably a consequence of the utilitarian transformation – without the forgoing transformation of the political, and thus public citizen, the transformation into ‘users and data subject’ would not have been possible and not even meaningful. – Of course, it would be wrong to deny that it is – at times – difficult to draw the line as it is always a question of finetuning interests: Though human beings are social beings, they do exist as individual ‘physiological/biological entities’; and though human beings do exist as individual ‘physiological/biological entities’, they do so being ‘formed’ and even physically characterised or ‘shaped’ by their environment (which is itself a matter of natural conditions and in various ways human-made). This serves as field within the borders of which the finetuning takes place. Of course, at first glance it makes sense to say that
[i]nstead of rules being something that exist primarily in writing, rules are increasingly being baked into code and enforced automatically by computers. Instead of being free to drive in a bus or taxi lane and risk incurring a fine if you’re found out, your future car may simply refuse to go where it’s forbidden. (Véliz: 68)
Yes, an exception may be needed:
Allowing some leeway makes room for exceptions that are hard to code into rules, like using the bus lane because you are driving someone in urgent need of care to the hospital. (ibid)
So far, so good – but what is with the ‘rule of people’ using the bus lane with a dangerously high speed, without any other ‘need’ to show off; blocking bus lanes while they are parking, thus undermining the development of public transport as attractive option etc.pp.? Instead of suggesting that privacy is power, thus supporting doing nothing else than providing arguments for the private control over data of our public life, we should talk about the need to break the private property – it is the private ownership of material resources as much as it is the ownership of opinion-forming. And that means not least, that democracy must be developed as space and means of permanent engagement, going much further than being asked for a vote every four to five years.
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If we approach the question from an angle of political economy, using a broad historical brush, we can easily detect
- a secular development from simple/primitive cooperation as matter of production and reproduction,
- moving to socialisation of production – the emergence of increasingly long chains of interdependence – going hand in hand with the deformation of the social reproduction, taking the form of market-mediated processes of exchange and
- then moving further to
- industrialised mass production of isolated workers in social settings on the one hand and
- private, small-scale, quasi-individualised production with socialised distribution and reproduction
- so far – tentatively – ending in remerging social/cooperative forms of production and reproduction, not least depending on the use of – also cooperatively – technology, including technology of which digital instruments and AI are an important component
It is true, that we still must go a long road to go. It may also make sense that ‘we should not start from here’. But that can easily result in fatalism, leaving us in hopelessness. The long way requires not least that we honestly address the realities: the possibilities that exist, the opportunities from which we must choose and the obstacles we face. One of the major obstacles is most likely to take put the wrong question forward, and for control of our private data, forgetting that the real question is that our public data are used in the private interest of a few. This may sound naïve but the is simply a consequence of the naivety of those who dream of an island where they can live on their own and oppress Friday.