A better way to understand what we mean when we talk about privacy, then, is to see it as a right to self-­determination. Self-­ determination is about self-­governance, or determining one ’s own destiny. Its origins as a legal concept stretch back to the American Declaration of Independence, which states that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” It has always featured as a right of some description in international law, usually in the framework of nationhood and governance of territory. But with the explosion of postcolonial struggles in the latter half of the twentieth century, it gained new meaning—not least in the struggle for Algerian independence that Fanon was involved in. In places like South Africa, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), the Democratic Republic of Congo and others, mass social movements struggled for recognition outside the confines of colonial settler states. Later these places often found themselves burdened with postcolonial systems that reproduced familiar hierarchies. The right to self-­determination took on a renewed and deeper urgency, raising questions about how to empower people culturally, socially and politically, outside of the European ideals that offered lofty language but had also legitimized colonialism.

We should consider resetting the legal nature of our relationship with companies that collect and hold data from and about us. Law professor Jack M. Balkin argues that we should think of these companies as holding our data in the same way a doctor or lawyer would—that is, by virtue of a relationship of trust. “Certain kinds of information constitute matters of private concern,” writes Balkin, “not because of their content, but because of the social relationships that produce them.” He argues that we should think of these companies as information fiduciaries, and just as we would not allow our doctor or lawyer to sell information about us to data brokers, the same restrictions should apply to companies. Under this area of law, fiduciaries owe a duty of care and a duty of loyalty, and breaches of these duties are penalized by courts. The kind of information held about us by companies is personal, and potentially damaging if made public; it ought to be subject to similar regulation.