PI Brief Update

Privacy and dysfunction in a 1984 type World - Dr Mark Burgin

08/04/23. Dr. Mark Burgin BM BCh (oxon) MRCGP explains that little progress has been made to manage the dysfunction that is caused by denying individuals a private life.

The social media giants have done more to restrict the public’s ability to live their life in peace away from the constant gaze of others than any other actor.

Governments have largely been complacent in responding to the threats posed by the loss of a private life focusing on data security rather than control of data.

Individuals who interact with social media find that there is no way of controlling the uses that the data is put to and who can share the data.

It is rapidly becoming obvious that a holding individuals to the same standard of behaviour in an informal situation causes damage to the fabric of society.

Justifying the Use of Data

Bulk collection of data is often a reasonable and proportionate way of achieving the aims of society such as automatic number plate recognition.

Mining that data for other purposes causes the individuals to have aspects of their life disclosed in a way that is not justified or reasonable.

Listening in on an HGV driver’s private conversation might reveal that they were planning to phone in sick, but that use is not justified even by the later finding of misconduct.

The rules do not make clear how to determine whether a use is prohibited and most victims are unaware that for instance the manager has seriously breached privacy.

Penalties for Data Breaches

The focus on the amount of damage that breaches have caused miss the issues that it is impossible to measure the damage and much data is already available.

Where data is misused it is easier to recognise the damage caused so in the example above the HGV driver might have been unfairly dismissed and reputation damaged.

The information commissioner has little power to put right these types of problem so privacy has significantly less protection in the UK than secure storage.

This mismatch between public expectation of privacy and the ICO’s focus on data is dysfunctional and is likely to get worse as blurring of public-personal lives increase.

Collection of data

The public have agreed to have their data harvested and their attention monetarised but have been concerned about the ability of their data to be sold or searched.

There has been little discussion on the ways that data should be kept safe when uploaded to social media and the obligations that such companies should face.

When the whole of a person’s life is in the public sphere it can be argued that data breaches are less relevant than the ability of the person to keep some parts private.

The delay in regulating these large and powerful corporations has lead to a dysfunctional and dystopian world of constant observation and permanent memory.

Conclusions

There are three actors who are responsible for the dysfunctional loss of privacy in the UK; data managers, the information commissioner and social media companies.

The blurring between private and public creates the oppressive experience that was described by George Orwell in the book 1984.

Other changes such as the criminalisation of increasing numbers of individual activities that were previously unregulated such as hate speech has increased this pressure.

The erosion of privacy has had major impacts with many professionals being disciplined or dismissed but more pernicious is the increases in the fear of being watched.

Doctor Mark Burgin, BM BCh (oxon) MRCGP is on the General Practitioner Specialist Register.

Dr. Burgin can be contacted on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 0845 331 3304 website drmarkburgin.co.uk

Image ©iStockphoto.com/Ravi_Goel

This is part of a series of articles by Dr. Mark Burgin. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own, not those of Law Brief Publishing Ltd, and are not necessarily commensurate with general legal or medico-legal expert consensus of opinion and/or literature. Any medical content is not exhaustive but at a level for the non-medical reader to understand.