The Failure of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) and the Voiding of Privacy

Most contemporary conceptions of privacy are based on a notion of aseparation between the individual and the environment. On the oneside of this boundary lies 'the private' on the other lies 'the public'.The struggle over the protection of privacy is about defending thisboundary and the individual's ability to determine who can access theprivate under what conditions.Such a conception of privacy, far from being universal, is in facthistorically specific. Its rise (and decline) is part of a particular culturalcondition connected to the dominance of print media from the 16th to the 20th century. As electronic communications rise in importance,print culture, part of which is the notion of privacy, erodes.Reacting to this development, academics and the general public havebeen concerned with the preservation of privacy for more 35 years,precisely the period when the shift from print to electroniccommunication accelerated. During most of this time, focus of privacyadvocates was on the development of policy frameworks. Despitesuccesses, this strategy has, by and large, failed to stop the erosion ofprivacy.More recently, a new approach to privacy protection which promises torestore personal privacy has been developed in the context of theInternet: Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs).This article analyses some of the key PETs and concludes that they,too, fail to protect privacy in the electronic environment. This supportsthe thesis of the historical situatedness of privacy and raises troublingquestions for privacy advocacy in the long term.