Inverse Privacy

TL;DR

This paper examines the concept of inverse privacy, where individuals lack access to their personal information held by others, and proposes a market-based solution to address this unjustified inaccessibility.

Contribution

It introduces the inverse privacy concept, analyzes its origins and dominance, and suggests a market-driven approach to solve the access issue.

Findings

Inverse privacy information is increasingly dominant in personal data.

Market mechanisms can potentially restore individual access to private data.

The problem is rooted in systemic information asymmetry.

Abstract

An item of your personal information is inversely private if some party has access to it but you do not. We analyze the provenance of inversely private information and its rise to dominance over other kinds of personal information. In a nutshell, the inverse privacy problem is unjustified inaccessibility to you of your inversely private information. We argue that the inverse privacy problem has a market-based solution.