Information Privacy and Electronic Privacy Essay

Information Privacy and Electronic Privacy - Essay Example This type of privacy is however not limited to information stored in computer systems alone but in other electronic devices as well such as fax machines, mobile phones, telephones and even in emails. It pertains to any information that is transmitted or stored electronically in a digital manner. This paper is going to focus on differentiating the two kinds of privacy mentioned above. Even though they seem interrelated, they have their own differences including differences in legislative acts governing them as well as their sources and the potential privacy breaches as well as what measures can be taken to ensure the information remains private unless it is absolutely necessary for third parties to have such information (Eyob, 2009). Information privacy concerns information that is stored in records. This means that it covers only the information that the owner has provided about himself or herself depending on where it was needed for example in hospitals it is the medical records or in financial institutions it is the financial records about transactions among others. However, when it comes to electronic privacy, it is concerned with not only the stored personal information but the information in transit as well. This therefore means information one has just sent to another and even the recipient has yet to receive it but it is intercepted mid-way. Information privacy is mostly breached by individuals and private institutions seeking information that can be sold in industrial espionage or to taint the name of an individual. People seeking this kind of information therefore hire hackers and spies to go through the physical and electronic records in storage containing the information they need about the individual. In electronic privacy, the information is mainly sought by the government and law enforcement institutions in order to incriminate an individual. This is the reason they tap into conversations over the phone as well as