The Digital Person: Technology And Privacy In The Information Age

Rating:
Summary: Solove offers Real solutions to Real problems
Review: At long last . . . a book about privacy that doesn't just whine about how privacy is "dead"! Solove offers real solutions to real problems. The book is both frightening and optimistic. Solove talks about the efforts underway by big corporations and big government to collect our data and how its use is harming people. These developments are astonishing, and the book describes them in a way that opens your eyes to the big picture of what is going on. His discussion of why we should protect privacy is the best argument I've yet heard. Solove doesn't dumb down his discussion like many other books do. Nor does he throw his hands up in the air and say that our privacy is all gone. Solove is very specific about the changes he proposes in the law. I appreciated the fact that Solove offers real solutions. This is a deeper book than most books on privacy. If you want to learn why privacy should be protected and how, you should definitely read this remarkable book.
Sue Soltis
Colorado



Rating:
Summary: Vital reading
Review: Prof. Solove's book touches upon a vital issue that touches the lives of virtually every American today. I first learned of the author's expertise in the field when he was interviewed on NPR, and I have come to appreciate how he writes to a very broad audience. This is an important and growing field, and an area of the law that presents an increasingly contentious issue before the courts at the state and federal levels. Surprisingly, very few scholars have examined the nexus between privacy and post-September 11 government behavior, and I appreciate Solove's well-researched and crisply delivered introduction to the privacy debate. I highly recommend this book to any citizen concerned about the crucial area of privacy and the digital age.

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Summary: Comprehensive and easy to read...
Review: Solove has created a comprehensive and easy to read review of the emergent threats to personal privacy in the information age, and has succeeded in reconceptualizing privacy given the growing pervasiveness and power of digital dossiers. The Digital Person is divided into three parts: Part I discusses the emergence of digital dossiers, the threat they pose to personal privacy, how both the marketplace and the current legal architecture fail to adequately respond to these threats, and Solove's call for a new legal architecture. Suitable to be read on its own, Part I is a convincing and authoritative argument of Solove's thesis. Part II shifts to a discussion of how the increased use and access to public records, documenting one's life "from birth to death," contribute to the problem of digital dossiers when this information flows from the public to the private sector. And Part III considers data flows in the opposite direction - from the private sector to the government - as the vast digital dossiers being constructed by businesses are becoming more attractive to law enforcement agencies.

Rating:
Summary: One of the finest books on privacy
Review: This is a brilliant book. Professor Daniel Solove presents an alarming account of the way technology is changing our world - how we are living with a digital replica of ourselves in computers. He explains the problems of privacy with lively and fascinating discussions of literature, from Orwell to Huxley to Kafka. The book makes reading about technology and law come alive. This is one of the first books on privacy that explains the law in great detail. Surprisingly, there is quite a lot of law that attempts to protect privacy. But as Solove persuasively argues, it is not succeeding. This is a really informed discussion of the developments threatening our privacy and what the law has done and hasn't done about it. Solove has written an absolutely terrific book!