Privacy essay
The privacy was historically one of the basic civil rights in the US protected by the US Constitution, including the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution (Lasson, 2007). Today, the confidentiality of the private information becomes particularly important because the progress of the technology has made people vulnerable to the exposure and misuse of their private information as never before.
In such a situation, students, as the target audience, should be fully aware of the importance of confidentiality in the contemporary society in all fields, including health care, law and others. In this regard, it is particularly important to pay attention not only to legal but also ethical issues related to confidentiality because the violation of one’s confidentiality right may lead to offensive outcomes for the individual. The revelation of the sensitive information can affect the social standing of individuals, their relations with others, and their self-perception and self-esteem.
In fact, the maintenance of confidentiality is crucial from the ethical standpoint. For instance, in the health care environment, confidentiality is ethically essential to maintain the confidence of patients in their doctors. If patients are uncertain in their confidentiality, they will never trust their doctors. Hence, they will not uncover the information that may be important for their treatment. Another ethical concern that makes confidentiality essential is possible harmful effects in relations of the individual, whose confidentiality has been abused, and his/her social environment. As a result, the individual can face the problem of the deterioration of relations with his/her friends or relatives, for instance.
At the same time, confidentiality is extremely important from the legal standpoint too. In this regard, the respect to confidentiality is granted by the US Constitution and laws. One of the main reason for the maintenance of confidentiality is the privacy right of each individual granted to all citizens by the US Constitution. In such a way, the failure to maintain confidentiality will lead to the violation of existing legal norms and the US Constitution (Lasson, 2007). Another reason for the maintenance of confidentiality is determined by the protection of an individual from the overwhelming impact of the society and state agencies. For instance, unless there was the respect to confidentiality, law enforcement agencies could survey any individual 24 hours per day. Hence, individuals personal freedom and privacy would be just neglected and the life of people would be not just unaffordable but also controlled by the state.
The importance of confidentiality in the contemporary education system was uncovered in the course of the interview involving an educator of a college, who responded to questions related to his views on confidentiality and how students’ records should be protected from the unauthorized access of third parties. The interviewee was an educator working in a college with 5th grade students. The interviewee revealed the fact that the confidentiality of students’ records is one of the primary concerns of educators and the college. To put it more precisely, the access to students’ records is restricted and only educators, who are working with students, have access to their records. More important, the private information irrelevant to the learning process proper is not uncovered even to educators and is stored within the college being protected from the access of third parties or unauthorized use.
Thus, today, confidentiality plays an important part and its maintenance is crucial from the legal and ethical perspective.
