Critical Response to Understanding Privacy

Name Tutor Course Date Critical Response to Understanding Privacy by Daniel Solove Privacy has long been one of the most controversial concepts in the world. The need for individuals to feel secure within their societies is a core goal of many governments (Kernighan 10-12). However, this goal has often gone unrealized as many institutions, governments included, struggle with formulating comprehensive approaches and policies that support the protection and respect of individual and institutional privacy. It is on this backdrop that Daniel Solove’s book is based. Through an analysis of privacy and its subsequent classification into diverse facets with variant linkages and correlations, Solove employs a multidisciplinary approach to understanding privacy. This book adopts a broad scope, and explores the existing theories of privacy, their shortcomings, the societal needs regarding privacy, and uses this elaborate combination to provide a fresh perspective on privacy and its role in the society. In this way, he achieves the core purpose of the book. In his book, Solove asserts that assigning privacy a single definition is impossible, and thus developing multiple forms of privacy and analyzing their resemblances serves to be a more effective take on understanding privacy. He posits that in order to understand privacy, historical developments and changes, as well as cultural differences, must be acknowledged and bridged to realize a comprehensive understanding of privacy. In order to support his thesis, he first analyzes the existing privacy theories in practice in terms of their advantages and drawbacks. From the insights gathered through the process, he develops a reconstructed perception of privacy based on its generality and variability through the use of appropriate methodologies that support his technique (Solove 49). This thesis is bolstered by the fact that Solove manages to understand privacy based on its practical application, as opposed to its theoretical one. This boosts the credibility and support for his thesis. Furthermore, Solove asserts the need for privacy to be deconstructed and reassembled on the blueprint of a different framework. His framework, as presented in the book, proves to provide a fresh understanding of privacy that is bound to reevaluate privacy and allow readers, professionals and other individuals engaged in the privacy debates to address contemporary issues surrounding privacy in a unique and tailored. Solove’s argument regarding the need to deconstruct privacy and develop multiple forms of privacy that share familial resemblances is one that holds water. This is because too often, perceptions of privacy are unique to an individual. This is as a result of the social viewpoints through which different individuals view life and the need for privacy (Kernighan 53). Consequently, a one-size-fits-all approach is bound to fail, as has been proven ...