A new language of privacy?

Here's an interesting piece by Timothy Grayson on the language of privacy.

He opines:

Some of the intractable challenges of identity (especially the non-technical notions of information "ownership," privacy, and so forth) are the direct result of having the wrong language for dealing with digital identity.

[...]

I think the language -- the vocabulary --we're using to create and discuss digital identity is a holdover from a different time and place. While it is valid and necessary to some degree during this transitional period because it creates a shorthand for getting to ideas and provides essential continuity with the past, the baggage that this vocabulary brings with it is weighing down and impeding effective discussion about what is and where it's going. In this case, we're applying 17th or 18th-century definitions of private and privacy in a 21st-century world.

I agree. Identity is much better described as an emergent property of a relationship than as an objective, and hence ownable thing.