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Privacy

Privacy depends on the degree to which others can access information about, observe, and make inferences regarding a person or persons. People considering the societal implications of nanotechnology recognized early on that nanotechnology was likely to have profound effects upon privacy. Some of these effects stem from increased computing power. Others result from smaller, stronger, and more energy-efficient surveillance devices and improved sensor technologies. More speculatively, nanotechnology may open up new areas of surveillance and information gathering, including monitoring of brain states. Regardless of the precise ways nanotechnology affects information gathering and analysis, there are persistent social, legal, and moral questions. These include the extent to which persons have rights to privacy, the possibility of widespread surreptitious surveillance, who has access to privacy-affecting technologies, how such technologies will be treated legally, and the possibility that developing technologies will change our understanding of privacy itself.

Technologies

In recent years, the increased use and power of computers for collecting, storing, sharing, and analyzing information and the greater prevalence of information collecting devices (including cameras, radio frequency identification, and global positioning systems) have significantly affected the degree to which individuals have privacy. Nanotechnology has the potential to increase computing power, in effect allowing the steady, exponential increase in the capabilities of digital electronic devices to continue. Similarly, nanotechnology has the potential to increase the capacity of surveillance hardware. Stronger, lighter nanomaterials allow for smaller and more durable surveillance devices. Advances in battery efficiency, photovoltaics, and energy generation may allow for devices to operate longer without maintenance, in turn allowing for more widespread and remote placement. Greater computing power may allow devices to store large amounts of information. More speculative is the possibility of small autonomous devices that can travel by themselves and collect information selectively.

Nanotechnology also has the potential to expand the capabilities of other information gathering and analysis tools. One such avenue is nanotechnology-based sensors, which could allow for small, inexpensive, accurate, and easy-to-use devices to test for biologics, weapons, or drugs, either from samples (e.g., of blood or saliva) or in ambient conditions. These could have any number of uses, including disease surveillance, driver sobriety testing, and security. Another, perhaps more deeply privacy-affecting aspect of nanotechnology relates to the intersection of medicine and nanotechnology. For example, work has been done in the military context on devices to monitor soldiers' brain states, detect when they are fatigued or stressed, and deliver drugs to counteract the states.

Social, Legal, and Moral Considerations

The potential effect of nanotechnology on privacy takes place against a background in which people value privacy deeply, and there is widespread belief that people have moral rights to privacy in at least some contexts. However, the justification for rights to privacy (if there are any) is disputed. Prominent views base privacy rights on human dignity, personal autonomy, the value of human relationships, property rights, political freedom, and social utility. Others argue that privacy is of negative value, or that any attempts to protect privacy are futile. Legal protections for privacy are widespread, but piecemeal. Important examples include Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. There is a patchwork of statutory protections for privacy in the United States; assorted laws in various jurisdictions apply to different entities and to different types of information.

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