We’re not fundamentalists – personal information deserves respect
Guy Herbert writes in The Guardian, responding to an article arguing that the state has an automatic right to our personal information:
What unites us is we are thinking of society rather than the goals of the state. To criticise a bureacratic grand projet in principle is not “implying personal information is property rather than a social construction that would not exist but for government”. Quite the contrary. To ask important questions about what personal information and privacy are, and should be, is to repudiate such know-nothing nostrums. Personal information is important because it is constructed in relationships, because it mediates trust, and because making official relationships obey coherent rules maintains the legitimacy of government functions. It is the stuff of all our lives – not property – but worthy of at least as much respect.
