Comment - Reflecting on Privacy’s Perceived Omnipotence and the Lost Role of Equality in Regulating Working Time

“PRIVACY AND THE RIGHT TO (DIS)CONNECT” (Collins, 2025) is a beautifully written and captivating work concerning the enmeshment of personal and work time amid the always-on work culture. It argues that while the industrial era created a space and time configuration for work at the factory, information and communication technologies have dissolved previous divisions, essentially moving us back to feudal times. Now, we are always at the beck and call of the master, but with a digital “DING”: an email, text, or WhatsApp from employers, clients, and co-workers, transgressing formerly held boundaries of space and time allotted for work and contractual or statutory entitlements for personal time (Collins, 2025). This depiction of work as all-consuming is in stark contrast to basic human needs, Collins argues. It also goes against early efforts to regulate working time during industrialization that attempted to create boundaries to allow for life’s multi-dimensions: work, family, civic association, and leisure (Renan Barzilay, 2012).