One of the limitations on ability to keep some things private is that the information may be revealed by family members. As mentioned in previous blog entries on this blog and more recently on PHIprivacy.net in the context of genetic issues, your private information may be revealed in a number of legal, however unfortunate, ways.
Attorney Mark Fowler has an interesting blog entry about this topic. It begins:
Autobiographers and memoirists sometimes face thorny legal issues when they write about aspects of their own lives that are inseparably intertwined with the private lives of others. Can a woman truthfully describe the intimate details of her sex life if, in doing so, she identifies her partner and aspects of his life (adultery, promiscuity, kinkiness?) he would prefer to keep forever secret? Can a gay man write about his HIV-positive status if, in doing so, he effectively discloses that his partner is also infected with the virus? The answer is an unsatisfying: “Sometimes — provided it is done the right way.”
Read more on Rights of Writers. It’s a fascinating and complex issue and Fowler discusses some cases to clarify how courts have approached the situation when right to privacy may collide with a speaker’s right to tell their own life’s story.
H/T, @marshallyoum