Conditional Privacy Rights

People have subjective valuations of privacy. Thus, absent further considerations, efficiency requires that a person be afforded privacy if, and only if, his subjective valuation of privacy exceeds the social value of the information that would be disclosed through a violation of that person's privacy. Absolute regimes that either always allow privacy, or never allow privacy, cannot achieve this result. This article shows that a conditional privacy regime can lead to efficient separation among people based on their subjective valuations of privacy. Moreover, this regime need not inefficiently distort information collection incentives or incentives to refrain from various acts that may generate collectible information.