Core Values and Their Relation to Privacy

Abstract

This chapter provides the basis for our overall goal of developing recommendations on how a culture of privacy and trust on the Internet can be fostered. We begin by presenting an understanding of privacy developed in the first stages of this project that is used throughout this document. Since the recommendations are derived from core values that we hold fundamental in our European democratic tradition and are also in line with an underlying understanding of human freedom, this chapter introduces the core values — free self-determination, democratic participation, and economic well-being — and indicates why we have selected them. Following this, we discuss each of the core values in greater detail, taking the perspectives of the social sciences, ethics and law into account. We also elaborate on the specific relationship between the core values and privacy. Showing the inextricable linkage between privacy and the basic principles of a free, pluralistic and democratic society will lay the foundation for transferring this relationship to the cyberworld,⁵ and more specifically, to two exemplary Internet-application areas: OSNs and e-commerce.