It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
The Fight for Privacy

The Fight for Privacy

Protecting Dignity, Identity and Love in the Digital Age

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Danielle Citron takes the conversation about technology and privacy out of the boardrooms and op-eds to reach readers where we are - in our bathrooms and bedrooms; with our families and our lovers; in all the parts of our lives we assume are untouchable - and shows us that privacy, as we think we know it, is largely already gone.

The boundary that once protected our intimate lives from outside interests is an artefact of the 20th century. In the 21st, we have embraced a vast array of technology that enables constant access and surveillance of the most private aspects of our lives. From non-consensual pornography, to online extortion, to the sale of our data for profit, we are vulnerable to abuse. As Citron reveals, wherever we live, laws have failed miserably to keep up with corporate or individual violators, letting our privacy wash out with the technological tide. And the erosion of intimate privacy in particular, Citron argues, holds immense toxic power to transform our lives and our societies for the worse (and already has).

With vivid examples drawn from interviews with victims, activists and lawmakers from around the world, The Fight for Privacy reveals the threat we face and argues urgently and forcefully for a reassessment of privacy as a human right. And, as a legal scholar and expert, Danielle Citron is the perfect person to show us the way to a happier, better protected future.

© Danielle Keats Citron 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Reviews

  • It's so refreshing to read an argument for privacy that centres women - Citron presents a crucial analysis that has been sorely missing from this important debate until now. Devastating and urgent, this book could not be more timely
    Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women

About the author

Danielle Keats Citron

Danielle Citron is the inaugural Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she teaches and writes about information privacy, free expression and civil rights. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2019 for her work on cyber stalking and sexual privacy, and one of the 'Top 50 World Thinkers' in 2015 by Prospect magazine. Her book Hate Crimes in Cyberspace was hailed as one of the '20 Best Moments for Women in 2014' by Cosmopolitan magazine. She has written for major media outlets such as the New York Times, the Guardian and Wired.

Professor Citron is a member of Facebook's Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery Task Force and Twitter's Trust and Safety Task Force. She has also advised Kamala Harris and the UK government, and on campaigns internationally on privacy, free expression and civil rights.

Website: daniellecitron.com
Instagram & Twitter: @daniellecitron
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more