Contextual Integrity and its Discontents: A Critique of Helen Nissenbaum's Normative Arguments

• Published in: Policy and internet 2019-09, Vol.11 (3), p.260-279
• Main Author: Rule, James B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: contextual integrity; Disclosure; Domains; Ethical standards; integridad contextual; Integrity; normas; Norms; Personal information; Policy making; privacidad; Privacy; Social norms; utilitarianism; utilitarismo; valores; values; 价值观; 效益主义; 规范; 语境完整性
• ISSN: 1944-2866; 2194-6019; 1944-2866
• DOI: 10.1002/poi3.215

Helen Nissenbaum's doctrine of contextual integrity has won extraordinary attention as a standard for acceptability in the flow of personal information. It promises to distinguish between forms of disclosure that are ethically justified and others, based on the social relationships and purposes of the settings in which they occur. The attraction of any analytical system that could accomplish such results is obvious, but this article holds that Nissenbaum's claims are not fulfilled. Notions that norms underlying any given domain of human conduct are unambiguous or uncontested simply do not withstand close examination. Indeed, most social norms, particularly in rapidly changing domains of human conduct like privacy practices, are volatile and highly contested. Many different interpretations of the “correct” norms are possible for any given context, and thinkers are always inclined to embrace those interpretations that most closely fit their pre‐existing mind‐sets and value positions. This flexibility has helped make the doctrine enormously attractive to policymakers seeking to defuse conflicts between proponents of new uses of personal information and privacy advocates. But it has hardly yielded unambiguous policy prescriptions that all parties could agree on. 作为个人信息流中可接受度的标准, 海伦·尼森鲍姆 (Helen Nissenbaum) 提出的情境完整性（contextual integrity）学说已获得广泛关注。学说致力区分道德层面和其他层面上不同形式的信息披露, （区分标准）基于社会关系和形式所属背景的目的。任何能得出这些结果的分析体系, 其吸引力显而易见, 但本文认为, 尼森鲍姆的主张没有实现。任何既定的人类行为背后的社会规范都是清晰的或无争议的, 这样的观点显然无法经受详细检验。的确, 大多数社会规范, 尤其在隐私实践这种快速变化的人类行为领域中的规范, 是不稳定的且存在高度争议。“正确的”规范在任何语境下都可能存在许多不同解释, 但思考者总是倾向于支持那些最贴近其既有思维模式和价值取向的解释。这种灵活性引起决策者对该学说的强烈兴趣, 决策者试图平息“对个人信息进行新的使用”的支持者和隐私倡导者之间的冲突。然而该学说还没有催生出让各方都认同的明确政策方案。 La doctrina de la integridad contextual de Helen Nissenbaum ha ganado una atención extraordinaria como un estándar de aceptabilidad en el flujo de información personal. Promete distinguir entre las formas de divulgación que están éticamente justificadas y otras, basadas en las relaciones sociales y los propósitos de los entornos en los que ocurren. La atracción de cualquier sistema analítico que pueda lograr tales resultados es obvia, pero este artículo sostiene que las afirmaciones de Nissenbaum no se cumplen. Las nociones de que las normas que subyacen a cualquier dominio dado de la conducta humana no son ambiguas ni cuestionadas simplemente no resisten un examen detallado. De hecho, la mayoría de las normas sociales, particularmente en los dominios de la conducta humana que cambian rápidamen