One of the most fraught ethical issues of our day is privacy. On a personal level we feel betrayed if a friend broadcasts secrets we have shared. But we also feel distressed to hear of an old person found at home weeks after their death. Their neighbours saw nothing, failed to register their absence, did not enquire.
On a public level we may also be ambivalent about privacy. We may feel outraged when a government department releases confidential information about people who complained about their treatment. We may feel uneasy when photos and speculation on the guilt of people accused of a crime are released before their trial.
If we see a satellite in the night sky, we might fear it is sending back images of us putting out the cat. But because we want to feel secure we may be prepared to sacrifice some of our privacy for safety.
We may be concerned when governments and corporations appeal to commercial in confidence clauses to hide details of their behaviour that affect the public interest; when governments criminalise the exposure of mistreatment of people held in detention centres; and when church authorities fail to disclose the actions of abusive priests. In these cases the appeal to privacy is a weapon to arm the powerful against the weak.
Our ambivalence suggests that privacy does not automatically trump all other values. Its claims needs to be negotiated in each situation and be set within larger values that govern its reach.
I would argue, perhaps paradoxically, that privacy is important because it is the condition of good human communication. To assess the demands of privacy properly we need to recognise that we are not solitary individuals but persons who depend for their wellbeing on one another. Privacy protects and enriches the quality of our engagement with one another.
This argument presupposes that each human being is unique and deserving of respect simply by being human, not by achievement or status. In each of us is a personal centre able to reflect, to wonder, to explore the world and to evaluate it, to long and to love, to make decisions, and to engage freely with other human beings.
To respect other human beings means respecting that inner space. Privacy is the gate that allows us to leave and others to enter the garden of our deepest and most vulnerable selves. If it is torn off its hinges we shall live on