The cost of privacy

A Slashdot article shows links to an interesting article about the Hidden Cost of Privacy, which also caught Bruce Schieier's attention. As Bruce himself said, this article presents valid points, they are summarized as below:

1. Too much paperworks in the "process" of protecting one's privacy could be so overwhelming that it has negative effects on increasing one's awareness of his own privacy.

2. Too many hoops, too many papers to go through hinder scientific progress. This is especially true for medical research. In other words, regulations are too tight, while ones whose privacy are being protected may not even know about them.

This is quite an insightful piece of thought, especially for an online article from a full-of-ads website. This article really reminds me of a recent book I just finished reading: Free Culture.
There seems to be similarities between privacy regulations and copy-right regulations. On one hand, these laws meet what they set out to do: to protect one's right. Copyright laws prevents others from taking advantage of one's creativity. It protects the creative work just like other properties. Privacy laws protect one's control of the dissemination of his information (in any form). As far as the normal citizens/users are concerned, these law are effective. We're at fault at not spotting companies or individuals that violates these rights, we can not blame the laws for not protecting us.

Now, there's a grey area that is discussed extensively in the book Free Culture, which could also be extrapolated to privacy law. The author argues that while the current copyright regulations protect copyright owners, the public/soceity and our own culture suffer. Among other things, it is because of the long duration during which copyrighted work are private properties. It is also because of the system in use for tracking copyright owner and obtaining permission. All these process hinder creativity an innovation, as individuals would be refrained from create and innovate using others' works (not in the public domain). The same could be said for privacy law.

There's another point of resemblance between copyright and privacy. There do exists people who don't want to copyright their work; as well as there are people who are not concerned about how their information are being disseminated (abeilt trivial information). The laws must make room for these cases, by changing the current regulations to be more flexible.

The author of Free culture argues that regulations must always seek for a balance among many different factors, and they should also be adjusted as new (technologicial) environment emerges. However, not all of these cost and benefit could be easily quantified. In addition, it is difficult to predict how the current trends (of technology) develop in the future. Thus, making regulations regarding both copyright and privacy are difficult.

In conclusion, while I'm in favour of the current law of privacy to be made more flexible, I don't see it happening in the near future. There must be more cases against the tightness of the current regulations, which must also demonstrate losses in money or other important values of soceity.