Transparency Challenges for Business and Privacy

The book focuses almost entirely on transparency in the public sector—its legality, good practices, failures and the reasons for them. The conclusion also raises the question of the role of transparency in business and privacy. The business sector is an important part of society, driven by the laws of the market. A brief walk through this area suggests that the quality of activity in the business sector would increase if it operated more on the principles of transparency. Our view of privacy is based on the premise that citizens need to know what the state is doing, not on the premise that the state is controlling citizens. First, we look at examples of citizen surveillance and the harmful consequences it entails. We propose that citizens should be able to have insight not only into the workings of the state, but also into who is watching them (which companies, state bodies) and when. This should be a particular concern for countries, which should guarantee this for their citizens through legislation and/or internationally binding instruments.