Engineering Software Products: An Introduction to Modern Software Engineering

7.5 Privacy

Privacy is a social concept that relates to the collection, dissemination, and appropriate use of personal information held by a third party, such as a company or a hospital. The importance of privacy has changed over time, and individuals have their own views on what degree of privacy is important. Culture and age also affect peoples’ views on what privacy means. For example:

• Some people may be willing to reveal information about their friends and colleagues by uploading their contacts list to a software system; others do not wish to do so.

• Younger people were early adopters of the first social networks, and many of them seem to be less inhibited about sharing personal information on these platforms than older people.

• In some countries, ...