ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Can ‘cyberspace’ promote democracy as well as protect privacy? Must we see the informational openness of democracy and the individual’s or group’s need to control the flow of personal data as zero-sum alternatives that may (or may not) be ‘balanced’? Or, as some democratic theorists assert, can they support each other, albeit in conditions of ‘informatisation’ that are not usually comprehended in democratic theory? And is it possible to create rules for protecting democracy and privacy in the decentralised and anarchic conditions of networks like the ‘information superhighway’?
