Considerare la privacy come un diritto dell'individuo nell'epoca dei Big Data: una discussione del lavoro di Van Der Sloot

The aim of this thesis is to analyze how the concept of privacy has changed throughout the digital age, focusing specifically on how Big Data impacted it. In particular, we will discuss Bart Van Der Sloot’s work, in which he tries to advocate a new conceptualization that exceeds privacy as a mere individual right. In order to do so, we will proceed step by step. In the first chapter, we will focus on providing a grounded and efficient definition of Big Data: we will start by analyzing “Data” in broader terms to then move to the analysis of “Digital Data” and “Big Data”. In the second chapter we will focus specifically on privacy, presenting a brief genealogy and an overview of the conceptual debate in order to see how modern privacy emerged, to then move on to the challenges privacy faced with the rise of IT technologies and the use of Big Data. In the third chapter will be entirely dedicate to the analysis of Van Der Sloot’s work and of his idea of a virtue-based approach to privacy, rather than an individual approach. In the fourth and final chapter, we will draw our conclusion, addressing what convinced us and what did not sound right about Van Der Sloot’s argument, arguing that indeed a change in the common concept of privacy is needed.