Your Data Is My Data: A Framework for Addressing Interdependent Privacy Infringements

Everyone holds personal information about others. Each person’s privacy thus critically depends on the interplay of multiple actors. In an age of technology integration, this interdependence of data protection is becoming a major threat to privacy. Yet current regulation focuses on the sharing of information between two parties rather than multiactor situations. This study highlights how current policy inadequacies, illustrated by the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, can be overcome by means of a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Specifically, the authors introduce a new phenomenological framework to explain interdependent infringements. This framework builds on parallels between property and privacy and suggests that interdependent peer protection necessitates three hierarchical steps, “the 3Rs”: realize, recognize, and respect. In response to observed failures at these steps, the authors identify four classes of intervention that constitute a toolbox addressing what can be done by marketers, regulators, and privacy organizations. While the first three classes of interventions address issues arising from the corresponding 3Rs, the authors specifically advocate for a fourth class of interventions that proposes radical alternatives that shift the responsibilities for privacy protection away from consumers.