Privacy and the Information Economy

The development of information systems and the growth of the information society has stimulated interest in individual privacy. Individual information systems researchers and practitioners have made important contributions to the ongoing debate. We examine current approaches and question their efficacy in protecting privacy online. We identify two key areas of concern: the cost to the information economy of current privacy protection measures, and their mono-cultural origins. We then propose a new approach derived from Hegel's investigation of the concept 'private', and show how it has a broad application to privacy issues in the information society.