Privacy of Information

Boundary Management

As with all personal or private matters, the self regulates the logistics for which such private matters should be revealed. First and foremost, the owner controls the private information. The owner also has the power to determine to whom to disclose private information. This idea refers to boundary management of private information. Boundary management enables individuals to regulate their preferred levels of privacy and also helps protect themselves when disclosing to the other. These boundaries exhibit the tensions between withholding and telling personal or private information in order to cope with possible vulnerabilities associated with revealing private matters. A person may find pieces of information more private than others and choose different people with whom to share. The owner of such information determines with whom to share such information and when and why to do so. These ideas are known as the rules for disclosure, and they will be further discussed in the section that follows.

Rules for Disclosure

The owner of private information controls the rules surrounding sharing of information. If sharing of private information occurs, the rules surrounding disclosure can change. There are two types of rules within communication privacy management theory: access and protection of disclosure. Rules for access include the logistics of disclosure, which allows the individual to decide what information they disclose, to whom, when, and where. These access rules depend on, but are not limited to, the characteristics of the relationship, such as the individual’s attraction for, liking of, or trust in, the person with whom the individual plans to share private information.[Page 1322] An example of access rules includes having an appropriate setting for sharing private information with someone (e.g., a person may find an intimate setting more comfortable for sharing personal yet private information with the other). Furthermore, in an intimate setting there is less chance for distraction and for other people to overheard and become co-owners of the private information in question. On the contrary, protection rules come into play when the individual might not want anyone else to know their private information. When the self does not want others to know about private information, they guard against access of that information and aim toward not disclosing it to the other.

...