Dignity and Utility of Privacy and Information Sharing in the Digital Big Data Age

Abstract

Today enormous data storage capacities and computational power in the e-big data era have created unforeseen opportunities for big data hoarding corporations to reap hidden benefits from individual’s information sharing, which occurs bit by bit in small tranches over time. This paper presents underlying dignity and utility considerations when individual decision makers face the privacy versus information sharing predicament. Thereby the article unravels the legal foundations of dignity in privacy but also the behavioral economics of utility in communication and information sharing. For Human Resources managers the question arises whether to uphold human dignity in privacy or derive benefit from utility of information sharing. From legal and governance perspectives, the outlined ideas may stimulate the e-privacy discourse in the age of digitalization but also serving the greater goals of democratisation of information and upheld humane dignity in the realm of e-ethics in the big data era.