What is Digital Privacy?

Digital Privacy is a complex issue because the definition of privacy is on-going and relative, not merely situational. For example, privacy in the colonial period of United States history meant something drastically different from what privacy now means in the U.S. Furthermore, privacy has different meanings across boundaries--as European privacy law differs from U.S privacy law, and both of them differ from Canadian privacy law. As technology, specifically the internet, takes off, issues of privacy are critically important. What is now considered a public domain? Does such a thing as a private domain exist anymore? Should companies be allowed to retain data on individual user's searches? Should Google be allowed to take pictures of people's houses? What happens if someone takes a picture of a private citizen and posts it on the internet? What happens if it is a video? Is there a way to enforce a law even if passed?

What are the implications of growing up in a society that always remembers and never forgets? The life of a Digital Native is constantly recorded through digital tracks. What will the future hold? How does this environment impact the ways in which Digital Natives think about privacy? The generation gap between non-natives and natives highlights the blurring definition of privacy. Previously thought private domains are being public--and public places are no longer parochially public but in fact globally public.

These are only some of the questions that need answers in this increasingly digital age. The following description and analysis of digital privacy aims to shed light on these questions and addresses possible solutions.