Abstract
This book is about the impact of one social, political and moral issue — privacy — upon contemporary social science. As social inquiry extends its scope, questions about the legitimacy of its inquiries and the rights of the individual citizen to be left alone are posed with increasing sharpness. Is it justifiable to ask members of the public questions in censuses and surveys about sensitive and private topics such as income or sexual behaviour? Is it justifiable to allow social scientists access to medical records in hospitals or doctors’ surgeries in order to advance science? Should different sets of records be linked together for purposes of statistical analysis, even though the individual citizens who originally provided the information believed that it would be treated as confidential? What legal safeguards are there to prevent the release or legal seizure of social-research data collected under promises of confidentiality?
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Notes and References
Alan F. Westin, Privacy and Freedom, London, Bodley Head, 1970, p. 7.
US Department of Health Education and Welfare, Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1973, pp. 40–1.
Cf. E. Shils, ‘Privacy: its constitution and vicissitudes’, Law and Contemporary Problems, 31, 1966, p. 283, note 1.
It has been argued that there is also a ‘private’ realm of secrecy. Cf. C. Warren and B. Laslett, ‘Privacy and secrecy: a conceptual comparison’, Journal of Social Issues, 33, 1977, pp. 43–51, who discuss stigmatised or disadvantaged minorities that use secrecy to conceal their behaviour. However, the examples used of sexual minorities are doubtfully generalisable.
For a recent British example, cf. H. P. Wyn, ‘Freedom of statistical in-formation’, JRSS, A, 141, 1978, pp. 1–13.
For a discussion of this trend, cf. M. Bulmer (ed.), Social Policy Research, London, Macmillan, 1978, Chapter 1.
For an historical survey, see C. A. Moser and G. Kalton, Survey Methods in Social Investigation, London, Heinemann, 1971, Chapter 1.
Cf. J. M. Adams and D. H. Haden, Social Effects of Computer Use and Misuse, New York, Wiley, 1976, Chapter 3, ‘The history of computation’.
D. Madgwick and T. Smythe, The Invasion of Privacy, London, Pitman, 1974, p. 20.
For a succinct introduction to computers and privacy in general, see Alan F. Westin and M. A. Baker, Data Banks in a Free Society: computers, record-keeping and privacy, New York, Quadrangle Books, 1972, Chapter 1.
For general surveys, see Westin and Baker, op. cit.; US Department of Health Education and Welfare, Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens, op. cit.; C. C. Gotlieb and A. A. Borodin, Social Issues in Computing, New York, Academic Press, 1973;
A. R. Miller, The Assault on Privacy, Ann Arbor, Michigan, University of Michigan Press, 1971;
I. Taviss (ed.), The Computer Impact, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, 1970.
Privacy Protection Study Commission, Personal Privacy in an Information Society, Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, July 1977, pp. 3, 14.
American Statistical Association, ‘Report of Ad Hoc Committee on Privacy and Confidentiality’, The American Statistician, 31, May 1977, p. 60.
O. M. Ruebhausen and O. C. Brim, ‘Privacy and Behavioural Research’, The American Psychologist, 21, 1966, p. 426.
M. Rein, Social Science and Public Policy, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977, p. 259.
H. C. Kelman, ‘The Rights of the Subject in Social Research’, The American Psychologist, 27, 1972, p. 989.
See also H. C. Kelman, ‘Privacy and Research with Human Beings’, Journal of Social Issues, 33, 1977, pp. 169–95.
For a discussion of one such case, see D. N. Kershaw and J. C. Small, ‘Data Confidentiality and Privacy: Lessons from the New Jersey Negative Income Tax Experiment’, Public Policy, 20, 1972, pp. 257–80.
For a fuller exposition and analysis, see E. Shils, ‘Privacy and Power’, in Center and Periphery: Essays on Macrosociology, University of Chicago Press, 1975, pp. 317–44.
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Bulmer, M. (1979). The Impact of Privacy upon Social Research. In: Bulmer, M. (eds) Censuses, Surveys and Privacy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16184-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16184-3_1
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