March 2023

I have long said that data protection is not privacy (and vice versa), but these things, however defined, are inextricably linked, more now than ever before.

This book contains a wonderfully curated selection of written pieces on the philosophy of privacy, edited by Stephen M Cahn, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and Carissa Veliz, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford.

Cahn and Veliz have chosen a rich array of both classic and contemporary literature from some of the best minds in this area exploring issues around governance, law and ethics. The book gives the reader a sense of both the history and importance of this subject.

I have spent many years willing for privacy and data protection issues to be considered through more of a philosophical lens because I think fundamentally, they increasingly relate to questions of what it is to be human.

Gone are the days when these issues related to spreadsheets and databases. This is now something that affects all of us, all of the time.

Although written (and edited) by very serious academics, the book is accessible to anyone who has an interest in gaining an insight into the role of privacy in our modern, data hungry, world.