Privacy policy and PETs: The influence of policy regimes on the development and social implications of privacy enhancing technologies

Privacy” is an ambiguous notion, encompassing personal autonomy, democratic participation, identity management, and social coordination. Each of these privacy ideals reflect different sets of social concerns. Laws operationalize privacy in terms of “personally identifiable information.” Technologies reify that definition. This has implications for the constitution of identity and social life. It may empower data holders to rationalize populations and create self-serving social categories, while permitting individuals to negotiate these categories outside of panoptic vision. It may facilitate public awareness of and resistance to these created social categories. A more expansive understanding of identification and privacy should inform policy discourse.