The Individual and Privacy

Book excerpt: The essays selected for this volume reflect the many paths followed to develop a new, more robust methodology (idMAPPING) for investigating privacy. Each article deals with the three dimensions of time, space and place by addressing a number of questions such as: who? Which individual? When? How? Is privacy viewed from the perspective of legal theory, or of information science? Or from the viewpoint of sociology, social psychology, philosophy, information ethics or data protection law? The reader is offered a multi-disciplinary overview of the subject, a mosaic made up of several snapshots taken at different times by different scholars with different points of view. The detailed introduction increases clarity in parts of the picture where the way that the pieces fit together may not be immediately apparent, and concludes by challenging internet-era fallacies. Taken together, the articles demonstrate an innovative approach to evidence-based policy-making, and show privacy scholarship at its best.