Privacy Sources

Here are some good books on privacy issues that have been published in recent years. This list is by no means complete. If you are interested in purchasing a book, just click on the link. It should take you to the appropriate page on the Amazon.COM website.

---Simson

 

 

 

 

 

Agre, Philip E. (Editor), Marc Rotenberg (Editor), Technology and Privacy : The New Landscape, MIT Press, 1997

A survey of technology & privacy, focusing on the ways that so-called Privacy Protecting Technologies can increase privacy.

 

Bertillon, Alphonse, Chief of the Judicial Identification Service of France, Signaletic Instructions, including the theory and practice of Anthropometrical Identification. Translated from the latest French edition, with 132 figures, plates and tables. Edited by Major R. W. McClaughry, late General Superintendent of Police of Chicago. The Werner Company, Chicago. 1896.

This book describes the Bertillon system of identification, which was among the first biometric systems to be developed and deployed in modern times.

 

Brin, David. Earth Bantam, 1990.

Brin's "no-privacy" vision of the Earth's future paints a world in environmental and political crisis. Set sometime in the next century, video cameras are everywhere, all of the world's data is available cheaply on the world data net, and vast destructive technology is routinely used by renegade individuals.

 

Burnham, David. The Rise of the Computer State: A chilling Account of the Computer's Threat to Society. Random House, New York. 1980.

Burnham's 1980 account of the computer's threat to privacy and the lack of fair information practices in the US.

 

Cavoukian, Ann & Don Tapscott,Who Knows: Safeguarding Your Privacy in a Networked World, Random House of Canada, Toronto. 1995.

This book provides a basic overview of privacy issues in North America, as told from the point of view of Cavoukian, the assistant Commissioner of Toronto's Information Privacy Commission. It covers Fair Information Practices, privacy laws, surveillance technologies, consumer privacy, medical privacy, workplace privacy, and why strong privacy policies makes good sense for business.

 

Eaton, Joseph W., Card-Carrying Americans - Privacy, Security, and the National ID Card Debate, Rowman & Littlefield, 1996.

Eaton argues that the United States must adopt a national identification card system in order to stamp out illegal immigration and to provide accountability for people making changes to computerized records. The card would contain a biometric to validate the holder. What Eaton fails to anticipate is the widespread deployment of data networks, and especially wireless data networks, which make such cards unnecessary.

 

Flaherty, David H., Privacy in Colonial New England 1630-1776, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville. (C) 1967 by David H. Flaherty; first published 1972

Flaherty's PhD thesis, an important account about the importance of privacy in Colonial times. It was more important than you might think!

 

 

Flaherty, David H., Privacy and Government Data Banks - An International Perspective, 1979

Flaherty, the privacy Commissioner of British Columbia, surveys the privacy practices and data protection regimes of Europe's major countries, and is mistaken for a CIA operative by the government of France in the process.

 

Garson, Barbara, The Electronic Sweatshop : How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past, Penguin USA, October 1989

Originally published in 1988 by Simon and Schuster, Garson's book tells a chilling account of how computers are being used to monitor the smallest action of workers, prohibit unionization, and how hourly employees are being turned into piece workers.

 

Kennedy, Caroline, Ellen Alderman, The Right to Privacy, Vintage Books, 1995.

Privacy in America, seen through US case law. Very good, although it doesn't say much about computers.

 

Long, Senator Edward V. The Intruders: The Invasion of Privacy by Government and Industry, with a Forward by Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey. Frederick A. Praeger, New York. 1966.

Senator Edward V. Long headed the US Senate's Subcommittee on the Invasion of Privacy. This book details the growing trend of electronic surveillance by government and industry in the 1960s. Also recounted in detail is the monitoring of the mails. Especially interesting are accounts of wiretapping by the Food and Drug Administration, which used electronic surveillance to gain evidence against those who were selling unapproved food additives, and the Internal Revenue Service, which used wiretaps in order to find unreported income. Readers will also be amused by photographs showing a variety of spy listening devices, such as a bugged olive, a gun that fires a dart containing a microphone, and a "shocker" that can be mounted on the back of "a young woman" in order to aid in gambling.

 

Marx, Gary, Undercover - Police Surveillance in America, University of California Press, 1988

Summarizes police impacts on personal privacy.

 

Orwell, George. 1984. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1949.

Fifty years later, many people forget that George Orwell's classic distopian vision wasn't about privacy, but about totalatariansim. Big Brother's control on his society was maintained by controlling the past and striking fear into the hearts of those in the present.

Packard, Vance. The Naked Society. David McKay Company, Inc., New York. 1964

Packard's monumental work on privacy and surveillance in the 1960s. Packard considers assault to privacy at home, in the workplace, by government and by industry. He looks at the economic and political factors forcing the new era of surveillance, and makes concrete recommendations of what should be done.

 

Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Dale Fetherling (Editor) The Privacy Rights Handbook : How to Take Control of Your Personal Information, Avon Books, 1997

A how-to guide for protecting personal privacy in North America.

 

Smith, Jeff, Managing Privacy : Information Technology and Corporate America, Univ of North Carolina Pr, June 1994.

In the only study of its kind, Smith looks at the privacy practices of some of America's most important corporations and figures out why they do such a bad job on the subject.

 

Smith, Robert. War Stories - Accounts of Persons Victimized by Invasions of Privacy. Privacy Journal, PO Box 28577, Providence, RI 02908. 401-274-7861. 1997.

Describes more than 500 cases of invasion of privacy including abuses in credit reports, medical information, "identity theft," electronic surveillance, Internet use, government information, telephone solicitation, and more. Published by the editor of The Privacy Journal.

 

Twain, Mark. Pudd'Nhead Wilson, Copyright 1893-1894 by the Century Company in Century Magazine. (C) 1894 and 1899 by Olivia L. Clemens.

First popular account of fingerprints to solve a crime.

 

Westin, Alan F: Project Director, Michael A. Baker: Assistant Project Director, DATABANKS in a Free Society: Computers, Record-Keeping and Privacy, Quadrangle Books, a New York Times Company, 1972.

This book reports the findings of a National Research Council study on the growth of electronic databanks and their impact on American society. The book contains in-depth reports on computers operated in 1970-71 by the federal government, states, commercial organizations, colleges, and other non-profit organizations. Readers will find especially interesting the reports on the computers operated by the Social Security Administration, the FBI's National Crime Information Center; Bank of America; TRW's Credit Data Corporation; the R. L. Polk and Company mailing list operation; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the Church of the Latter-day Saints. The book also summarizes the results of site-visits from 55 advance systems located around the United States, predicts future directions in computer technology, and then considers the impact of computers on public policy. Because of the staying power of legacy systems, many of the organizations profiled by Westin et all are still in use today, making this book still timely twenty-six years after its publication.