I Agree to Terms and Conditions: Negotiating Privacy Online in Central Asia

Abstract

This study explores the formation of privacy as a value for different stakeholders in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Building on fieldwork in the two states, the study represents one of the few attempts to map out the interpretations and practices of privacy in Central Asia. The rapid digitalization processes unfolding in these two countries, which have similar cultural and historical roots, provide an illustrative setting of how privacy can be scrutinized in dissimilar political contexts, how its value is defined by the policies of the past, and what the apparent and dormant risks for society are.