Digital people, digital places: Rethinking privacy in a world of geographic information

With respect to the right to privacy, some of the most difficult concerns arise from the map, and especially the modern, computer-generated map. Maps support a view in which the local-and the private-are unimportant, as they represent the world in ways that make places seem fundamentally alike. By geocoding the location of people, places, and events, maps offer a universal set of identifiers, one much more difficult to regulate than traditional identifiers like the social security number. At the same time, they support the development of a system of geodemographic profiling in a way that creates ''digital individuals'' over whom most people have little control. And when these data are placed on a map, the problems are exacerbated, just to the extent that the reading of maps is a highly culturally determined practice; different people often interpret the same map in very different ways. This collection of problems suggests that in the context of a rapidly diffusing commercial mapping system, the traditional conception of the right to privacy is under attack, and that in the process that right is being redefined.