Sanfilippo co-edits book on the relationships between privacy, governance, and information

Madelyn Sanfilippo (School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois) has co-edited a new book, Governing Privacy in Knowledge Commons, with Brett M. Frischmann (Villanova University School of Law) and Katherine J. Strandburg (New York University School of Law). The book, which was recently published by Cambridge University Press, explores the complex and dynamic relationships between privacy, governance, and the production, cultivation, and sharing of knowledge.

Governing Privacy features several case studies across academia, social media, mental health, and the Internet of Things (IoT). One of the examples is Sanfilippo’s own study of political activists and IoT users.

“It was wonderful to bring together so many thoughtful individuals, all considering privacy and governance to explore their cases in parallel, so as to help us better understand general principles about how personal information is collaboratively governed as resources and how privacy itself governs participatory communities and platforms,” said Sanfilippo. “One of the biggest insights from this work is how important the legitimacy of governance is relative to privacy. We need to make sure that people have both choices about how to share their personal information and the means to express their expectations about privacy.”

Sanfilippo’s research empirically explores governance of sociotechnical systems as well as outcomes, inequality, and consequences within these systems. She earned her MS and PhD in information science from Indiana University.

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