Privacy: An Ontological Problem

Approaches to addressing privacy issues tend to assume privacy is well understood and typically approach the problem from a security perspective. However, security is more concerned with safety than with privacy. Given the lack of satisfaction with advanced privacy-enhancing-technologies, we argue that an ontological framework is fundamental to advancing the capabilities of technologyenabled solutions. In recognition that privacy is a right to control information about oneself, this paper develops a new ontological foundation for privacy an initial and important step to modeling privacy as a means to improving the privacy protection effectiveness of information systems.