Publishers Weekly
08/29/2022
UVA law professor Citron (Hate Crimes in Cyberspace) warns in this persuasive and impassioned call for substantive legal protections for private data that “memories of our intimate lives are being created against our will by perpetrators who intrude on the seclusion that we expect, want and deserve.” Noting that “intimate data gets captured whenever we browse, search, or use apps,” Citron contends that the law “hasn’t caught up to address the powerful roles that apps play in our lives.” She cautions that bad actors can “download malware onto our personal devices” and gain “access to our photos, texts and calendars,” and her chilling examples of privacy invasions and acts of exploitation include the story of an Azerbaijani journalist who was threatened with the release of intimate videos if she did not stop investigating political corruption in her country. To address the problem, Citron recommends that “privacy violations should be treated as felonies” and proposes, among other corporate policies, that businesses only be allowed to collect personal data if it is used for “a legitimate business purpose that isn’t outweighed by a significant risk to intimate privacy” and they have obtained “individuals’ meaningful consent to collect their data.” Accessible legal reasoning and galling case studies make this a cogent argument for reform. (Oct.)
Australian Book Review - Jessica Lake
"What gives [Citron] the edge is a real-world understanding of privacy’s relationship to diverse permutations of power and her ambition to address the disproportionate impact of violations on women and minorities."
Atlantic - Charlie Warzel
"Citron argues in [The Fight for Privacy] that we need a new social compact, one that includes civic education about privacy and why it is important. . . . What is at stake is nothing less than our basic right to move through the world on our terms, to define and share ourselves as we desire."
Martha Minow
"Danielle Keats Citron’s expert and engaging treatment of ‘technology-enabled privacy violations’ shows why victims, digital platforms, and legislators alike turn to her for advice and for fights to reclaim privacy morally, legally, and practically."
Erwin Chemerinsky
"A terrific, though terrifying, exposé. This beautifully written book deserves a wide audience and hopefully will inspire needed meaningful change in the law."
Caroline Criado Perez
"It’s so refreshing to read an argument for privacy that centers women. Devastating and urgent, this book could not be more timely."
Washington Monthly - Rhoda Feng
"An important intervention in the larger conversation about digital privacy and harassment."
Safiya Noble
"A crucial book for understanding the crisis of privacy invasion, and the unrelenting damage that comes from intimate, nonconsensual surveillance. If you care about anyone, anywhere, you should read this book."
Sue Halpern
"Danielle Citron is everyone’s teacher when it comes to digital privacy."
Susie Alegre
"A powerful and urgent manifesto for the protection of ‘intimate privacy’ in the United States and beyond."
Cordelia Fine
"The Fight for Privacy is nothing less than the battle to keep our intimate, private selves free from exploitation. A vitally important book."
Kate Manne
"A tour de force. Arguing convincingly that our intimate privacy is a moral necessity being eroded in frightening and accelerating ways, Danielle Keats Citron offers trenchant clarity and lucid hope for achieving justice in our digital future. A must-read."
Fortune - Rachel King
"From how social networks sell our data to retailers (and worse) to the concern around period-tracking apps being used against pregnant people, the fight for privacy has never been more fierce.…Drawing from interviews with victims, activists, and lawmakers, Citron calls for a reassessment of privacy as a human right and how we can better protect our future privacy."
Shoshana Zuboff
"Privacy is politics, and if we want it back we must fight for it. In this open-hearted and down-to-earth book Danielle Keats Citron offers reasons for optimism among the ruins of our once-cherished privacy. She details the devasting effects of the loss of ‘intimate privacy’ and argues that new rights and laws for the digital age are both long overdue and within our grasp. Lawmakers and citizens alike, this book is for you."
Hany Farid
"Danielle Keats Citron—the brilliant, ground-breaking law professor and civil rights advocate—continues her important and impactful work in helping governments, society, and the titans of the technology sector to understand that our collective failure to protect our intimate privacy amounts to a massive failing to protect our basic civil rights. Through heartbreaking accounts from victims, a careful and detailed exposition of how a range of technologies are being weaponized against us, and a detailed review of the ethical and legal landscape governing these issues, The Fight for Privacy is a must read by anyone who cares about civil rights."
Library Journal
★ 10/01/2022
The internet has changed the world forever. It's an era when the norm is to overshare everything, but what about the secrets that people do not want others to know? Citron (law, Univ. of Virginia; vice president, Cyber Civil Rights Initiative) details shocking stories and global statistics about intimate privacy violations, which disproportionately affect underrepresented groups, especially women and the LGBTQIA+ community. In the United States, people are not protected from anyone exposing intimate details and images from their dating and sex lives or mining data from phone apps and releasing personal information that can ruin lives. The author lays the groundwork in this book for everyone to fight both legally and socially for change in the U.S. VERDICT Anyone who is deeply involved with using the internet in any form should pick up this book. It is important for everyone to understand how intimate privacy violations affect its victims and why the fight to make a change needs to happen as people continue to live their lives online.—Leah Fitzgerald
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2022-09-06
How our intimate lives have been compromised and what we can do about it.
A law professor and vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, Citron, author of Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, explores how corporations and governments, as well as unscrupulous individuals, have laid siege to our privacy. She surveys some of the most invasive and egregious examples of privacy violations that have become common in the last decade or so, ranging from secret video recording, hacking of personal digital devices, “sextortion” schemes, cyberstalking, cyberflashing, deepfakes, nonconsensual pornography, and various modes of digital surveillance and data collection. Citron demonstrates how specific groups—especially women and members of the LGBTQ+ community—have been particularly subject to abuse, and she highlights in her treatment of individual cases how grievous the personal toll on victims can be. The author argues persuasively that what currently limits efforts to address privacy violations are the weakness of legal protections, a widespread laxity in the pursuit of offenders, and a broader cultural confusion or apathy about what is at stake in the defense of privacy across all platforms. At present, she writes, the “law lacks a clear conception of what intimate privacy is, why its violation is wrongful, and how it inflicts serious harm.” Despite this grim message, this is a hopeful and inspiring book, offering plausible suggestions about a variety of meaningful reforms that could be enacted in the near future. Citron’s detailed, carefully argued recommendations include the application of civil rights laws to privacy violations, much tighter regulation of the tech industry, an expansion of the range of criminal law, stricter enforcement of existing laws, and the cultivation of political support by raising public awareness about the urgent need for change. Such interventions, Citron makes clear in this timely and compelling book, might help forge a “new compact for social norms.”
An informed, bracing call to action in defense of our private selves.
