Understanding Privacy by Formalizing It

Abstract

In most of the modern societies, there is a broad consensus regarding the need for promoting privacy and thus placing restrictions on technological-including AI-developments to protect people's right to privacy. In order to meet these expectations on the algorithmic level, first we need to make the concept of privacy and the related or derived rights formally specified. However, the notion of (the right to) privacy is subject to different interpretations. In this paper, we use a multi-modal logic to provide an initial formalization of different theories, basic principles and their implications investigating the right to privacy as an epistemic right within the theory of normative positions.