Tara's Thesis: Personal Space and State Coercion

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Tara's thesis on the right to privacy and its implications for the use and manipulation of personal data is ingenious. It provides a new, holistic framework of property that appeals to Lockean, Kantian, and Madisonian ideals. It then applies this framework to the right to privacy for personal data, drawing upon constitutional and legal principles. I find Tara's reorientation of the notion of property to be particularly interesting and convincing. Its added dimension of the "exclusive right to control" makes the notion of property in Tara's account significantly more profound than that in other accounts. 

I would, however, like to push on Tara's thesis on one front and propose an extension on another. First, Tara's conception of one's "realm of personal space" (25) is quite vague. She suggests: "...there is a realm of personal space, composed of ourselves, our thoughts, and those things most central to our purposiveness that are entitled to this absolute privacy" (25). While Tara provides a justification for including personal data in this realm of personal space, she fails to provide the boundaries of such a realm. If people have varying conceptions of what is "most central to [their] purposiveness," is it even feasible to conceive of such a realm? Tara mentions an important distinction: that between personal property and private property. She argues: "...it is not necessarily true that all private property is subject to such a right to privacy" (29). While Tara's appeal to Marx and Engels demonstrates that such a distinction can be made, it does not demonstrate how it should be implemented. I believe this is important to consider, especially in the context of Tara's argument that the state is required to uphold the right to privacy only for property in one's realm of personal state. 

Second, Tara argues: "...the state has a positive obligation to protect a realm of 'personal space' necessary for full control of one's lives and liberties" (46). She reasons that this obligation is rooted in its fundamental role in protecting one's self, which Tara argues is the most important form of one's property. While this argument is convincing, I believe it can be further bolstered with a channeling of Cory Brettschneider's core value theory. In his theory, Brettschneider argues that state coercion is justified so long as it upholds the principles of public reason and inclusion. This means that justified state coercion treats citizens as free and equal and respects the interests of individual citizens, respectively. In the case of the privacy of personal data, state regulation of third parties' use of consumer data, which Tara advocates in her thesis, is justified through the lens of the core value theory. While the third parties mentioned may argue that their manipulation of personal data is warranted given its benefits for consumers and that state regulation is an overstep of authority, their argument fails. In providing consumers with the ability to fully exercise their right to privacy, state regulation would not undermine citizens' status as rulers. In fact, state regulation would strengthen this fundamental status. In sum, Brettschneider's core value theory does not only justify Tara's proposal for state regulation; it protects it against the argument that state regulation is unjustified.

Overall, Tara's thesis is well-articulated and demonstrates the strengths and applicability of renowned trains of philosophical thought. While it does lack some clarity in regards to the notion of personal space, it sheds light on the seriousness of data privacy issues. 


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