THE meaning of the word privacy has collapsed, according to Order of Australia recipient Frank Moorhouse.

“The whole word has become so slippery and loaded with interpretations we do not know what we are talking about when we’re talking about privacy,” he said.

The subjective nature of the word means the concept of privacy, and thus people’s views on the matter, could not be consistent throughout society, Mr Moorhouse said.

For this reason, The Australian Law Reform Commission faced a near impossible task attempting to define privacy for the purpose of a report on privacy law reform in 2007.

The result is a three volume, 2693 page, 74 chapter accumulation of 28 months of research.

Of almost 300 recommendations for reform outlined in the mammoth investigation, less than half were accepted.

Mr Moorhouse also cited the Honourable Justice Michael Kirby’s anecdotal introduction to his speech on privacy to a Melbourne audience earlier this year as an example of the subjective nature of privacy.

Justice Kirby spoke of an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald in 2002, claiming Kirby moonlighted as a newspaper delivery boy when partner Johan van Vloten ran a newsagency.

According to Justice Kirby, there is ‘not a skerrick of truth’ to the story.

Mr Moorhouse said Justice Kirby considered the story an intrusion into his private life.

He said correcting a story such as Justice Kirby’s as a consequence of personal offence incurred by its exposure unintentionally reinforces any stigma surrounding the situation.

Though, Mr Moorhouse noted, the story reported in the Sydney Morning Herald was not, in fact, true.

He considers Justice Kirby one of his idols.

Without the self-conscious correction, Mr Moorhouse said the proportion of the population that considered a Justice of the High Court aiding his partner by performing the tasks of a paperboy to be worthy of degradation might have been slight.

According to Mr Moorhouse, much of the feedback Justice Kirby received in relation to the story was positive.

Many people considered the story to be sweet, he said.

Mr Moorhouse suggested the best precaution for the shame associated with the exposition of private information to be an increase in transparency.

That is, to make the private public.

As information becomes more readily available about a particular topic, Mr Moorhouse said the given topic is more widely accepted.

It is lack of acceptance that fuels the social denigration of a topic, and thus inflicts embarrassment upon persons affiliated with it.

Mr Moorhouse suggested the readiness of the ‘young generation’ to self-disclose information might aid in weakening damaging social stigmas.

He referred to the success of the gay community in alleviating some of the stigma associated with ‘coming out’ by doing just that, despite the threat of homophobia.

After all, he said, the curiosity of the public about one another’s affairs has not changed.

And it’s incredibly unlikely that it ever will.

The difference, it seems, is embracing the opportunity to disclose the information oneself, instead of being exposed.

In shattering some traditional notions of privacy, the age of information may be doing just that- informing society.