A control systems model of privacy

ABSTRACT

Concerns about individual privacy, specifically in relation to automated data systems containing personal information, are considered in terms of a feedback control system model. This model provides a framework which appears to relate many separate concerns which individuals or groups have expressed about privacy. It also provides a framework which may be suitable for analyzing legislation or regulations promulgated for the protection of privacy. The model may assist in defining needed research on the need for privacy, or on the impact of inadequate protection of privacy.

The model posits that data systems pose various "threats" to privacy depending on the extent and manner in which the existence of such information systems hinders the ability of individuals or groups to provide feedback to systems which affect them.

REFERENCES

• 1: The Privacy Mandate; Planning for Action, Symposium/Workshop National Bureau of Standards and The MITRE Corporation, Washington, D.C., April 2, 3, and 4, 1975.
• 2: Westin, A. F., Privacy and Freedom, Atheneum, New York, 1967.
• 3: Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens, Report of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data Systems, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, July 1973, DHEW Publication No. (OS)73--97.