The Privacy Interest in Property

52 Pages Posted: 1 Mar 2018 Last revised: 18 Sep 2019

See all articles by Abraham Bell

Abraham Bell

Bar Ilan University - Faculty of Law; University of San Diego School of Law

Gideon Parchomovsky

Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Faculty of Law; University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Date Written: 2019

Abstract

Once upon a time, there existed a clear nexus between property and privacy. Protection of property rights was an important safeguard against intrusions of the privacy interests of owners both by the government and by private actors. Gradually, however, the symbiotic relationship between privacy and property has been forgotten by scholars and policymakers and fallen into oblivion.

In this Article, we seek to restore the centrality of privacy in property law by making two novel contributions – one descriptive and one normative. Descriptively, we demonstrate that concerns for privacy inform, at times implicitly, many important property doctrines. Indeed, we show that privacy provides an indispensable compass for understanding and uniting diverse and seemingly unrelated property rules. Second, we propose ways by which privacy concerns can be better and more explicitly incorporated into property law and policy. We show that attention to privacy can reinvigorate scholarly thinking about property and lead to new solutions to long-standing problems.

Keywords: Property, Privacy

JEL Classification: D82, K11, P14, P48

Suggested Citation

Bell, Abraham and Parchomovsky, Gideon, The Privacy Interest in Property (2019). University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 167, p. 869, 2019, U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 18-9, San Diego Legal Studies Paper No. 18-336, Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 18-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3127086

Abraham Bell (Contact Author)

Bar Ilan University - Faculty of Law ( email )

Faculty of Law
Ramat Gan, 52900
Israel

HOME PAGE: http://law.biu.ac.il/English/segelE.php#

University of San Diego School of Law ( email )

5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110-2492
United States

Gideon Parchomovsky

Hebrew University of Jerusalem - Faculty of Law ( email )

Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus, IL 91905
Israel

University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School ( email )

3501 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
United States
215-898-1603 (Phone)

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