Group Privacy:Its Redefinition And Ethical Principles

The traditional privacy theory is closely related to individual freedom and individual autonomy which is based on individual privacy theory.However,in the era of big data,data processing technology can not only identify personal information,but also analyze groups based on group characteristics,which easily violates personal privacy from the group level.This makes it difficult for the privacy protection paradigm based on individual privacy theory to effectively protect privacy,prompting people to rethink their understanding of privacy,conceptualize groups formed in data processing from the perspective of privacy,and propose the concept of “group privacy”.Scholars have conceptualize group privacy by discussing the type of “group” in group privacy,and have proposed a variety of group privacy theories based on their respective understandings of group privacy.This paper summarizes these group privacy theories into three types according to the relationship between group privacy and individual privacy.The first is the group privacy theory as an extension of individual privacy.It believes that group privacy is the attribute of group members and protects the identity of individuals as group members.The protection method advocated is to endow groups with collective rights.The second is the group privacy theory based on group identity and dignity,which holds that group privacy is the attribute of the group itself and protects the “identity” or “dignity” of the group.The protection advocated is to give the group privacy rights.The third is the individual-based group privacy theory,which holds that the above two types of group privacy do not exist in data processing,but only non-aggregate interests composed of discrete individuals,and individual privacy needs to be protected through the concept of “collective privacy”.This paper aims to reveal and analyze the defects of the concept of “group privacy”,redefinition the concept of group privacy,and put forward the ethical principles of group privacy protection.First of all,these group privacy theories essentially take individual privacy theory as a privacy theoretical basis,it makes group privacy fall into the same “chaos” and“ambiguity” as individual privacy,which is detrimental to the understanding and protection of group privacy.This paper believes that Solove and Cohen’s privacy theory can be combined as the basis of group privacy theory to make up for this defect.Secondly,the three group privacy theories separately discuss the two attributes of group privacy,unilaterally emphasize a certain attribute,or abandon the concept of group privacy to put forward a new concept,but this kind of understanding of group privacy is one-sided.In fact,group privacy is flexible in practice according to different social norms of privacy.In this paper,group privacy is understood as a dynamic and flexible concept,and group privacy is regarded as the privacy shared by individuals and others due to association,including individual privacy,group member privacy and group as a whole privacy.Finally,the three group privacy theories put the protection of group privacy on endowing group rights,which makes the protection of group privacy fall into the debate about whether and what kind of rights the group has.This paper argues that restricting the power of the data power party is more conducive to protecting privacy than giving rights to the subject(individual or group).On this basis,it puts forward the ethical principles of group privacy protection,such as negotiated management privacy,privacy responsibility and privacy accountability.