What is the ‘personal’ in ‘personal information’?

Contemporary privacy theories and European discussions about data protection employ the notion of ‘personal information’ to designate their areas of concern. The notion of personal information is demarcated from non-personal information—or just information—indicating that we are dealing with a speci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethics and information technology 2021-12, Vol.23 (4), p.625-633
Main Authors: Søe, Sille Obelitz, Jørgensen, Rikke Frank, Mai, Jens-Erik
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Computer Science
Data integrity
Ethics
Innovation/Technology Management
Library Science
Management of Computing and Information Systems
Original Paper
Personal information
Privacy
User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction
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Summary:Contemporary privacy theories and European discussions about data protection employ the notion of ‘personal information’ to designate their areas of concern. The notion of personal information is demarcated from non-personal information—or just information—indicating that we are dealing with a specific kind of information. However, within privacy scholarship the notion of personal information appears undertheorized, rendering the concept somewhat unclear. We argue that in an age of datafication, protection of personal information and privacy is crucial, making the understanding of what is meant by ‘personal information’ more important than ever. To contribute to this aim, we analyse the conception of personal information and its nature, including the distinction between personal and non-personal information from a philosophy of language perspective. Through analyses of aboutness and relative aboutness we point to challenges related to the demarcation between personal and non-personal information, which may in practice lead to all information being personal.
ISSN:1388-1957
1572-8439
DOI:10.1007/s10676-021-09600-3