“In designing a legal solution to the problems presented by digital dossiers, it would be a terrible mistake to lose sight of the fact that this world is more connected than ever before. [...] Data about digital natives freely crosses geographic and political borders, unfettered in virtually all instances. [For example, anyone from outside of the US who uses a US-based system is doing business with a foreign company.] The problem is that the protections [a person] enjoys in one country may not protect her in another context online. Any set of solutions we come up with needs to take these cross-border considerations to heart.
“It is also important to bear in mind the costs of privacy regulation. To date, privacy laws come not only with high costs but also, sometimes, with flaws in design and implementation. Privacy protections may run up against free-speech rights [...]. Consider [a Digital Native who] posts pictures, names and possible IM names or cell-phone numbers of her classmates online to create her own social network site. Under European data-protection laws, her activity, no matter how well intended, may be a violation of data-protection laws. But this is not the case int he United States*, where free speech in many instances trumps privacy. American law has yet to catch up to the changes in the way that Digital Natives are leading their social lives in networked publics.
- Palfrey & Gasser, Born Digital
*Editor’s note: This book was published in 2008. It is possible that the law has changed by now.
Task:
Identify the structural features and linguistic cues that the authors used to develop their argument.
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Questions:
Discuss the impacts of globalisation.
Free speech and privacy cannot co-exist. Discuss.
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