Contextual integrity evaluates whether information flows appropriately within social contexts. It considers the people sending, receiving, and described by information, the type of information, and the conditions governing transmission. A doctor’s office, a classroom, and a commercial platform may involve different legitimate expectations.
The framework analyzes a flow by identifying the subject, sender, recipient, information type, and transmission condition. A disclosure with permission differs from one made under confidentiality or for emergency support, even if the information is identical. This vocabulary helps make an otherwise vague privacy complaint precise. It also ties the assessment to the legitimate purposes of a context, so that a classroom’s information norms need not match those of a public debate or a commercial marketplace.