Woodrow Hartzog discusses developing the existing legal concept of “implied confidentiality” to help people address privacy violations. He explains:
We should have a better national dialogue about a romantic partner’s obligations of confidentiality. Salient norms of confidentiality would strengthen our relationships as well as the legal remedies for those whose trust has been betrayed.
Instead of prohibiting a certain kind of speech, confidentially law enforces express or implied promises and shared expectations. The tort of breach of confidentiality is currently very limited in scope, but could be made much more robust to sit alongside the more commonly asserted privacy torts.
I think this also fits nicely with my consent-based model–distributing a private image without consent would indeed be a breach in implied confidentiality.
Amy A. Hasinoff 