The Ontario government has decided to post your picture and personal information if you don’t pay up on your child support.
the website will include names, physical descriptions, last known addresses and occupations.
While I am unsympathetic to those who can and simply refuse to pay child support, there can be legitimate reasons why support payments have fallen behind. And we all know that the government is famous for mistakes.
They do apparently rely on the permission of the person owed the money, however, many people involved in these situations are quite adversarial and so might consider the smack at a former spouse before all else.
I think we are becoming far too comfortable with the idea of stealing peoples privacy “for the greater good”.
Cameras everywhere, more and more stringent ID requirements, less privacy and fewer civil rights.
These are easy targets, of course, who doesn’t want parents to fulfil their obligations? But if we do not protect the rights of those who we may feel do not deserve them, we set up easy inroads to take away the rights of those that we feel do.
We may agree that it is easier to prosecute if a crime has been captured on video. But do we agree that all our movements should be recorded?
Where does the line between defence and offence blur?
Here’s another question. When does this actually make a real difference? Sure, it may bring a couple of deadbeats to justice, but will it actually encourage better behaviour? I doubt it.
More generally, what is the genealogy of the concept of privacy? We hold to it as though it’s an eternal truth, but it’s a social construct. Do all cultures share that notion? There’s a fascinating research project here for someone.
I agree that one doesn’t want the face of an innocent person sent all over in an act of accidental defamation. But I, for one, won’t defend the “right” to privacy until I figure out what that means and whence it arose. I don’t think one needs to in this case anyway: the issue is not publicity per se but the possibility of error. That’s really a different issue.
I remember Lorenne Clark, during the course of a breathtakingly brilliant lecture many years ago, saying, “The last place feminists want privacy is in the home.” Given the prevalence of wife assault and child abuse, I couldn’t agree with her more. And it opens up the possibility that “privacy” may not really mean very much now, and less in the future.
That is of course using the “invisibility” conception of privacy, which is an outdated one.
When you consider privacy as “control of how you are visible to society” instead, Lorenne Clark’s argument loses validity.
Privacy is a social construct, but so are rights and freedoms. They have value only so far as we give them value. In a free society all three are important.
Which simply raises the question–why are they important? There’s a circularity in your argument.
They are important because liberty is impossible without some guaranteed semblance of each; and maximized when each is maximized in turn.
Can we not envision a free society without the notion of privacy? There is no essential connection that I can see.
Holy Shite, Hall of Shame already here, Canadian version
http://www.wantedposters.com/canada_posters.htm
Dr. Dawg, in a perfect world privacy would be unnecessary, but the fact remains that it is not a perfect world, it is still basically a warre of all against all; and I still like to shut the door when I’m pushing out a dookie.
That is very culture-specific, as is the Leviathan.