Freedom from Observation: Why Privacy Is An Irrelevant Concern
- stembeyondseas
- Aug 4
- 5 min read
Stepping into a phone booth in 1967 America meant one could reasonably expect privacy, even in public. This expectation was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, which declared that “the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places,” thereby solidifying a constitutional right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure (Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347). Decades later, the United Kingdom declared protections emphasizing personal privacy (Campbell v. MGN Ltd UKHL 22), and beyond the Western world, Japan’s 2003 APPI allowed individuals to control personal data without observation (Act on the Protection of Personal Information). Across international jurisdictions, privacy was understood as the right to limit unwanted observation, assuming individuals could separate themselves from such observation. Though in today’s digital age, this assumption feels, arguably, rather anachronistic.
The question of whether privacy is a relevant concern presupposes that privacy retains its classical meaning: freedom from observation. However, considering surveillance is largely unavoidable, freedom from observation is unachievable. Privacy is no longer a relevant concern, as the fundamental condition that made it intelligible—to separate oneself from observation—is unfeasible. To exist digitally is to be observed and recorded; privacy is no longer a plausible concern in a digital society, as achieving it in its purest form is impossible.
The Classical Definition of Privacy No Longer Applies
Privacy is classically defined as “being apart from…observation” (“Privacy,” def. 1.a). From this, it can be seen as freedom from observation: the view that individuals can, at will, separate themselves from oversight. Some may counter that today’s data extraction makes privacy more urgent, but this misconstrues the problem. It assumes the harms of digital surveillance can be solved by defining privacy as it was once understood: something defensible. Yet this approach fails today. “Personal information exists in the record systems of hundreds… it is virtually impossible to live as an Information Age ghost, leaving no trail” (Solove, 8).
To treat the classic understanding of privacy as a concern is to assume it can be preserved. But how can one preserve what cannot exist? With widespread observation, considering privacy relevant, despite it being unattainable, is unrealistic. Consider state agencies like the NSA, which “monitor and intercept all [private] activity.” Corporations such as Facebook have normalized data collection through “pseudo-participatory surveillance” that extracts user consent (Choksi). In other words, if observation is institutionalized, the definition of privacy as freedom from observation no longer applies. Surveillance contradicts the concept of privacy: there is no freedom from observation when all are observed. Since this condition can no longer be met, viewing privacy as relevant detaches one from reality, as true privacy is impossible. The traditional understanding of privacy is no longer relevant when observation is intrinsic to the modern world.
A World Built on Constant Observation
If privacy is meant to represent being unmonitored, then one must ask: can privacy truly exist in a world built on constant observation? Transitioning from 20th-century technologies to the 21st-century era of Big Data proves otherwise. The rise of Big Data, massively generated datasets from digital activity, has accelerated surveillance by using predictive analytics to allow systems to analyze behaviors without user awareness (Harvard Online). As Lyon indicates, “modernity’s predilection for certain definitions of privacy betrays the subjects… [who] fuel and foreclose surveillance” (Lyon).
Surveillance is further amplified by the Internet of Things, embedding sensors into everyday objects to allow for passive data extraction (Greengard). Evidently, one cannot pursue freedom from observation in a world designed to observe. Even mundane actions, such as unlocking a phone, generate behavioral data that can be used to infer personal information without active consent, as research describes, “...trackable in situations [one] might falsely perceive physical separation from others, e.g., walls… as privacy” (Ziegeldorf et al.).
This is not to say that harm from surveillance, such as identity theft, is irrelevant, but that calling it a “privacy” concern is conceptually outdated and no longer names the problem. Issues today are not isolated threats to personal space but a world where all are tracked and observed. In such a world, the concern regarding how to protect complete privacy is no longer relevant or attainable, as exposure and tracking are normalized.
Neuroscience Explains Why Privacy No Longer Feels Relevant
As privacy is traditionally meant to protect individuals from unwanted monitoring, its relevance hinges on whether people perceive such monitoring as threatening. According to neuroscience, the amygdala, the brain’s threat processor, declines in neural responses to repeated, non-threatening, predictable stimuli (Wieckhorst et al.). Cognitive research likewise states that “after repeated presentations, the response of the amygdala to salient stimuli, not followed by significant consequences, habituates” (Spohrs et al.).
Coincidentally, modern digital surveillance fits this pattern precisely: it is perpetual and unnoticed due to being done without user awareness and rarely results in noticeable negative consequences for individuals. As a result, many social studies note that people “take ubiquitously encountered surveillance systems for granted—seeing them as so commonplace… not worth thinking about critically,” as the routine experience of being observed inclines them “to view surveillance as acceptable” (Hartzog et al.).
In other words, the brain’s threat detector no longer flags digital monitoring as a danger requiring protection. Due to cognitive desensitization, if something is not psychologically processed as a threat, it ceases to hold current relevance as a top concern. In today’s digital society, as observation is intrinsic to existence and no longer triggers the brain’s alarm systems, privacy is no longer neurologically registered as a relevant or active concern.
Conclusion
According to definitions, technological realities, and neuroscience, privacy as freedom from observation is obsolete. Surveillance is no longer registered as a threat, and complete privacy in an online society is implausible, rendering privacy irrelevant in practice. In a digital world, privacy is no longer a relevant concern. To insist on the relevance of privacy as a current concern is to deny the very nature of digital existence: freedom from observation is, simply put, impossible, and thus privacy ceases to hold relevance as an active concern.
Writer:Victoria Ashley Lim Sakhrani
Editor:Jose Su
Works Cited
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