ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the non-appearance of an increase as regards the adoption of ISP techniques is due at least in part to a fundamental divergence between the in-built individualism of ISP discourses compared to the constitutional collectivism of ISP practices. On the one hand there is a discourse on ISP that makes certain claims as to how the latter helps to protect privacy, what privacy is, and what functions privacy is supposed to fulfil. On the other hand, ISP discourses also refer to a set of specific sociotechnical practices that are to be realised in order to practically achieve a certain form of privacy in a specific way. As far as the potential problems are concerned, it is a commonly held assumption that informational self-protection, especially through encryption, is an appropriate antidote to at least mitigate some of the issues that go along with life in (Big) datascapes, especially privacy-related issues.
