Liberty Lifestyle: Privacy and the Right to Be Left Alone

Flock cameras, artificial intelligence, government surveillance – you name it, there are a lot of devices and technology today that cause Americans concern over how much of their lives are being captured and stored. These worries are not new. In December 1890, Boston attorneys Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis published “The Right to Privacy” in the Harvard Law Review. The vehicles of surveillance may have changed, but this is an age-old debate that continues to evolve and change as society changes.

The Right to Be Let Alone

Laws have to change as society changes and Warren and Brandeis argued that technological and social developments had created invasions of people's personal lives that older laws weren't really designed to handle:

“That the individual shall have full protection in person and in property is a principle as old as the common law; but it has been found necessary from time to time to define anew the exact nature and extent of such protection. Political, social, and economic changes entail the recognition of new rights, and the common law, in its eternal youth, grows to meet the demands of society. Thus, in very early times, the law gave a remedy only for physical interference with life and property, for trespasses vi et armis. Then the "right to life" served only to protect the subject from battery in its various forms; liberty meant freedom from actual restraint; and the right to property secured to the individual his lands and his cattle. Later, there came a recognition of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and his intellect. Gradually the scope of these legal rights broadened; and now the right to life has come to mean the right to enjoy life--the right to be let alone, the right to liberty secures the exercise of extensive civil privileges; and the term "property" has grown to comprise every form of possession-- intangible, as well as tangible.”

More than 130 years later, we're essentially having the same argument. Now though, we’ve added all of modern society’s extensive technology that include everything from flock cameras to fitness watches to doorbell ring cameras.

Are Americans Really Concerned About Privacy?

In 1890, Americans were alarmed because a camera could capture someone's image without permission. Today, many of us voluntarily install internet-connected cameras at the front door, microphones in the living room, and location trackers in our pockets.

There’s a big fuss about flock cameras, also known as automated license plate readers, because they do more than capture images of license plates. They also collect vehicle information, time, date, and where people travel, and other data that could potentially map out a person’s routine.

But when you compare that to other ways Americans are relinquishing their privacy, it makes one wonder if we really care about exposing our private lives, or if it’s just the method – or who is controlling the strings – that matters more. For example, just consider cell phones. Most of us have them, even knowing they track everything: where we go, what we search online for, the websites we visit, the purchases we make, who we communicate with, and depending on apps, we might be giving away health and exercise information.

As realtors will tell you, location is everything. How many times have you gone on vacation and posted photos of where you are. Who doesn’t want to share that picture of you standing next to the biggest yarn ball in the nation, right? But do we really realize how much of our privacy we’re tossing out to the world when we share those fun photos?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought multiple actions against companies it claims has collected or sold precise location information. In one case, the agency alleged that data broker X-Mode/Outlogic sold information capable of tracking people’s visits to places that included medical clinics, houses of worship, and even domestic abuse shelters.

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In 1890, Warren and Brandeis were worried that a photographer might invade the home. Today, Americans share their private lives with their phones, television, Alexa, and a host of other technology – whether they realize it or not.

Your appliances are watching you. Is that really a conspiracy theory? In 2017, the FTC and New Jersey reached a $2.2 million settlement with Vizio over allegations that software installed on its smart televisions collected viewing information from 11 million TVs without consumers’ knowledge or consent. The agency claimed the information could be combined with demographic information such as age, sex, income, marital status, education, homeownership, and household size.

Alexa, are you listening? Voice assistants bring Warren and Brandeis's original concern almost literally into the home. The FTC explains that voice assistants listen for particular sound patterns or “wake words,” but they can sometimes mishear something and begin recording unexpectedly. In 2023, the FTC and Justice Department brought a case against Amazon involving Alexa. The government alleged, among other things, that Amazon retained children's voice recordings and certain geolocation information for years and failed to properly honor some deletion requests.

People are buying and installing ring cameras to keep their homes safe, but the FTC filed a case against Ring, saying the poor privacy and security practices had allowed employees and contractors access to customers’ private videos, and in some cases, enabled hackers to take control of cameras and videos.

For those of us old enough to remember Kit, the car in the 1982 TV series Knight Rider, we might never have thought technology would advance so far we’d have cars that responded to verbal commands or talked back to us. But today’s vehicles do more than respond to instructions, the FTC says they can collect data including biometrics, driving behavior, and videos. This year, the FTC claimed GM’s OnStar program in some vehicles transmitted precise geolocation information every three seconds while the ignition was on, including other factors such as speed, trip identifier, hard braking, and late-night driving, which could be provided to consumer-reporting agencies and possibly used to affect insurance rates.

Fitness trackers and health apps contain a lot of private and sensitive information such as health, exercise routines, weight, and so on. One thing people may not realize is that not every piece of health information is automatically protected by HIPAA.

And here’s a good one. Privacy software can be a privacy problem. Avast is an antivirus software that is supposed to provide privacy protection. However, FTC alleged that it collected users’ browsing information and sold it to more than 100 third parties. Information could potentially expose people’s health concerns, religious beliefs, political leanings, location, and finances.

So, do Americans really care about their privacy, or are we just uninformed about how much private details are being collected about us? Or is the convenience of our gadgets more important than sharing our personal details with chatbots, algorithms, and third parties? How do we maintain our “right to be let alone” with today’s modern world?