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Treating sensitive topics online: a privacy dilemma

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Abstract

This paper aims to provide new insights to debates on group privacy, which can be seen as part of a social turn in privacy scholarship. Research is increasingly showing that the classic individualistic understanding of privacy is insufficient to capture new problems in algorithmic and online contexts. An understanding of privacy as an “interpersonal boundary-control process” (Altman, The environment and social behavior, Brooks and Cole, Monterey, 1975) framing privacy as a social practice necessary to sustain intimate relationships is gaining ground. In this debate, my research is focused on what I refer to as “self-determined groups” which can be defined as groups whose members consciously and willingly perceive themselves as being part of a communicative network. While much attention is given to new forms of algorithmically generated groups, current research on group privacy fails to account for the ways in which self-determined groups are affected by changes brought about by new information technologies. In an explorative case study on self-organized therapy groups, I show how these groups have developed their own approach to privacy protection, functioning on the basis of social practices followed by all participants. This informal approach was effective in pre-digital times, but online, privacy threats have reached a new level extending beyond the scope of a group’s influence. I therefore argue that self-determined sensitive topic groups are left facing what I present as a dilemma: a tension between the seemingly irreconcilable need for connectivity and a low threshold, on the one hand, and the need for privacy and trust, on the other. In light of this dilemma, I argue that we need new sorts of political solutions.

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Notes

  1. For example, companies such as Cambridge Analytica or Deep Roots Analytics have recently developed tools that are explicitly intended to analyze group-related communications.

  2. For more far-reaching discussions on the matter of sensitive data, see, for example Wacks (1989), who seeks to establish a foundational definition of “sensitive information;” Fried (1968), who argues for the protection of a socially determined kernel of sensitive information; or Gerety (1977), who suggests limiting privacy rights to information that is sensitive and Ohm (2015), who proposes defining sensitive data in terms of the risk of privacy harm that can be caused by the data.

  3. In order to gain access to the unpublished papers documenting A.A. history and internal correspondence you are required to submit an official request to the General Service Offices of A.A. in New York stating motive and intention. Assuming you are granted access, you then have to appear in person at the Offices where you are handed the relevant archive folders to be examined in situ.

  4. An exhaustive list of all meetings observed can be found in Appendix to this article.

  5. “Sharing” means that individual members recount their experience of their disease, the solutions they found while struggling with their recovery process, as well as the emotions and break-downs they went through.

  6. 1992 The A.A. Message in a changing World; 1996 Preserving our Fellowship—Our Challenge, 1999—Trusting Our Future to A.A. Principles, 2011—We are Responsible for A.A.’s Future—Let it Begin With Us, 2013—Anonymity: Our Spiritual Responsibility in the Digital Age 62nd GSC.

  7. http://www.aa.org; http://www.na.org; http://www.slaa.org; http://www.oa.org; http://www.ga.org.

  8. Namely, an open source software called “ghostery.” For more information, see: https://www.ghostery.com/about-ghostery/.

  9. By horizontal privacy intrusions I mean intrusions relating to actors with equally distributed power resources, and by vertical privacy intrusions I mean intrusions that involve power asymmetries that are structurally embedded (Masur et al. 2017, 180 ff.).

  10. Social swarms have been defined as a “heterogeneous whole” characterized by their decentralized, interconnected, intelligent networks of independent but interconnected actors (Thacker 2004).

  11. This sentence has been suggested by one of the anonymous reviewers whom I thank very much for his/her advices and ideas on this piece.

  12. See, for instance: https://www.reddit.com/r/alcoholicsanonymous/.

  13. This finding is based on information provided by the “Ghostery” software, for more information, see fn. 8.

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Acknowledgements

The work for this article has been funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Paula Helm

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Correspondence to Paula Helm.

Appendix

Appendix

Sample of meetings selected for participant observation

Group

Place

Regular time

Dates visited

Alcoholics Anonymous

AA-Room, Passau/Germany

Thursdays 7.00 pm

Every 1st Thursday per month, May–Feb. 2012–2013

Overeaters Anonymous

KISS, Regensburg/Germany

2.00 pm

2.6.2013

Overeaters Anonymous

LGBT Center, New York City

Daily 12.00 pm

11.2., 29.3., 3.5., 25.6.2013

Narcotics Anonymous and Experts

Empire Hotel, New York City

“Roundtable”

19.04.2013

Narcotics Anonymous

St. Gregory’s Church, New York City

Mondays

7.00 pm

20.04.2013

Alcoholics Anonymous

Quakers´ House, Pennsylvania

Mondays 8.00 pm

13.05.2013

Sex Addicts Anonymous

LGBT Center, New York City

Saturdays 6.00 pm

18.05.2013

Gamblers Anonymous

St. Agatha Church 702, 49th

Thursdays 7.00 pm

16.05.2013

Al-Anon

St. Gregory’s Church, New York State, Saugertiers

Thursdays 12.00 pm

16.05.2013

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous

Methodist Church, New York City

Tuesdays 6.00 pm

21.05.2013

Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous

Methodist Church, New York City

Saturdays 18.00

01.06.2013

Overeaters Anonymous

Community Center Brooklyn, New York City

Mondays 6.00 pm

24.06.2013

Alcoholics Anonymous

General Service Offices of AA, New York

Fridays 11.00 pm

14.06., 28.06., 6.8., 13.09., 20.09. 2013

Underearners Anonymous

LGBT Center, New York City

Daily 10.00 am

29.06.2013

Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA)

LGBT Center, New York City

Sundays 11.00 am

30.06.2013

Narcotics Anonymous

Methodist Church, New York State, Woodstock

Sundays 7.30 pm

14.07.2013

Overeaters Anonymous

Group-Center, New York City

Tuesdays 8.00 pm

23.07.2013

Alcoholics Anonymous

Self-Help Center, Frankfurt am Main

Sundays 6.00 pm

08.09.2013

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Helm, P. Treating sensitive topics online: a privacy dilemma. Ethics Inf Technol 20, 303–313 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9482-4

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