ROTHENBURGER – The line between curiosity and invasion of privacy
Christopher Seguin at TRU’s Hall of Learning. (Image: KDN)
PRIVACY is hard to come by these days. The world has become a place without filters, where the best and the worst in us have full range of expression, and where lives can be celebrated or tarnished in an instant.
This age of algorithms, data collection, account hacking and social media has created an information contradiction — we’ve become a society of gossips, at the same time becoming ever more protective of our own privacy.
We’ve even legislated it with seemingly incongruent regulations on access to information combined with restrictions against it. We struggle to sort out when the right to privacy ends and the right to know begins.
There’s nothing more private, or more public, than a death.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops, former school board chair, former editor of The Kamloops Daily News, and a current director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He was awarded the Jack Webster Foundation’s lifetime achievement award in 2011. His editorials are published Monday through Thursdays, and Saturdays on CFJC Today, CFJC Midday and CFJC Evening News. Contact him at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Hear hear Mel, well said.
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Seems to me what you are most concerned about here is judgement, not invasion of privacy or curiosity. The family did the right thing by telling the media what killed their husband/father/son. They may have potentially saved another life by being honest. The fact that we as a society have taboos on subjects like drug overdose, or suicide is not helpful to our society as a whole. Talking about these things makes others aware that mental illness exists, and disease exists, and there shouldn’t be shame but empathy and education. It doesn’t take anything away from the person who passed, doesn’t diminish their accomplishments, but it makes them human and it shows other humans that may be in the same situation that it’s not taboo to talk to someone about your problems. Lets increase transparency and stop the judgement, and start with more education on how to identify and help individuals that need it.
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