3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The protection of genetic privacy in South Africa : towards a legislative response based on a cross-jurisdictional review of legal developments(2013-02-20) Govender, SandraThe deciphering of the human genetic code in 2003 has been widely acknowledged as a major achievement in genetic science but it has given rise to a number of legal and ethical concerns, most notably that of the protection of genetic information. Universally, there are ongoing attempts to address this concern. This research proposes a suitable approach for South African law. It proceeds from the premise that the privacy paradigm, rather than the anti-discrimination paradigm, is better suited to the protection of genetic information, hence the discourse on genetic privacy. The unique challenges posed by genetic information are identified, with a focus on forensic DNA databases, genetic research databases, life insurance, employment, and genetic research involving human participants. An in-depth analysis of the South African privacy protection framework is undertaken in order to determine its adequacy for the purpose of meeting the legal and ethical demands of genetic information. Aspects of the law of privacy, insurance, labour, evidence; medical law; philosophy and bioethics are accordingly traversed. A cross-jurisdictional review is undertaken with the aim of identifying lessons to be learnt from the experiences of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States of America. Legislation, common law, codes of practice, court decisions, international conventions, legal literature, ethical guidelines, and industry developments pertaining to the selected jurisdictions, are studied with the aim of identifying strengths and weaknesses in the various approaches. It is found that the current South African position is fragmented, complex, and in urgent need of reform. Another finding is that existing national and international ethical guidelines are not entirely adequate for the protection of genetic privacy. These findings, together with the lessons gleaned from the cross-jurisdictional review, lead to the conclusion that South Africa needs a specific genetic information protection statute for the protection of genetic privacy. This research culminates with recommendations regarding the content of the proposed statute.Item Perceptions of privacy and career impression management : the case of facebook.(2012-06-21) Pilcer, DanielleFacebook (FB) is a ubiquitous category of web 2.0 technology that has embedded itself in the present day reality of people worldwide. It represents the constantly evolving online environment and brings to light the associated implications of synthesising people’s online private and work life. FB can act as a platform for employees to create and manage the impressions formed of them in their work context. On the backdrop of the social capital theory, this research explored the relationships between FB experience, perceptions of FB privacy and FB career impression management (FB CIM) and specifically whether perceptions of FB privacy moderated the impact of FB experience on FB CIM. Phase 1 was concerned with creating reliable scales through the implementation of a pilot study. Phase 2 initiated the main study with a convenience sample of 217 respondents, made up of FB users and non- users, recruited online on social networking sites and within a South African based IT organisation. They completed an online survey consisting of biographical information; FB experience, perceptions of FB privacy and FB CIM items (self-developed scales). From the analyses conducted it was found that the constructed scales were reliable, with co-efficient alpha’s yielding scores of above 0.6; and structurally valid as seen with the factor analyses. It was found that younger respondents experienced higher FB experience than older respondents (r=-0.39). FB experience was related to perceptions of FB privacy with an increase in FB experience being related to increased levels of trust (r=0.16) (part of the perceptions of FB privacy subscale). FB experience was associated with increased FB CIM activities (self- monitoring r=0.26; work relations r=0.23) with FB experience being the strongest predictor of FB CIM. As such FB experience and one’s perceived importance of FB privacy may have an influence on the degree to which one actively engages in FB CIM.Item Privacy, surveillance and HIV/AIDS in the workplace : a South African case study.(2009-03-19T08:05:37Z) Muskat-Gorska, ZuzannaThe study focus on socio-legal dimension of medical data surveillance in the workplace on the example of the South African workplace response to HIV/AIDS. The strating point is the problem of growing data gathering and monitoring as an institutional feature of the information/surveillance society. Studying the problem in the context of workplace aims at indicating possibilities for social partners to respond to the new developments in the area of workplace surveillance and HIV/AIDS management in particular. The empirical data has been drawn from document analysis and interviews with trade union and business representatives from South Africa, involved in developing workplace response to HIV/AIDS. Particularly, the study is interested in identifying ways in which trade unions can make personal data treatment a trade union issue.