Privacy and Piracy: What is reasonable?

When we talk about a right to privacy in regard to the internet, we often think about informational privacy. This is essentially a right to control what data about us is available to others. There are a variety of data types that we might wish to keep private.

A major type of privacy is medical privacy, or our right to keep data about our medical records from others--specifically employers and insurance agencies in many cases. This could also be extended to our DNA because it is, to some degree, biologically predictive of our medical futures.

Another major type of privacy applies to our financial data. Clearly, financial privacy is important to protect oneself from different forms of identity theft where people can use financial information to either steal money or establish themselves under an alternate identity. However financial privacy can also be applied to purchases such as cigarettes or medication that might indicate to insurers the state of someone's health.

A third type of privacy could be called internet privacy. Internet privacy is defined by Wikipedia as "... the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information." This type of privacy is connected to the other types of privacy. If you're sending information over the internet regarding finances or health, you would want that information protected. Likewise, you might not want other people to know what medical sites you were visiting on the internet.

Internet privacy could also be seen as protecting the types of content that you access online and what activities you engage in online. If you access pirated content or if you engage in piracy online, internet privacy could be seen as protecting you from others that would seek to limit your privacy. Currently in the US, many ISPs require a court-order/warrant before revealing the identity of individuals engaged in piracy on the internet. Here, the rights of a content owner and the right of the individual are in opposition, so a court can step in to define where the rights of the individual end. An individual's right to anonymity or privacy is very limited in this case.

While it seems given that a right to privacy is not necessarily a right to commit a crime, how are we to judge in other situations? Under the 4th Amendment (the source of much of this law) there is "... the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." If the person is committing crime, it is usually considered "reasonable" to search there records, financial, medical, or on the internet. But, what if they have not necessarily committed a crime. What if someone is seeking civil damages against them? Or what if an insurance company thinks that someone lied about knowledge of a pre-existing condition? Should the insurance company be able to present as evidence that this person was researching information about MS on Google 3 months before they got insurance and 6 months before they were diagnosed?