Editing Individuation (section)

==Usage==
The word ''individuation'' occurs with different meanings and connotations in different fields.

===In philosophy===
{{main|Principle of individuation}}
Philosophically, "individuation" expresses the general idea of how a thing is identified as an individual thing that "is not something else". This includes how an individual person is held to be different from other elements in the world and how a person is distinct from other persons. By the seventeenth century, philosophers began to associate the question of individuation or what brings about individuality at any one time with the question of identity or what constitutes sameness at different points in time.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-century Philosophy, Volume 1|last1=Garber|first1=Daniel|last2=Ayers|first2=Michael|date=2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0521307635|location=Cambridge, UK|pages=212}}</ref>

===In Jungian psychology===
{{main|Analytical psychology#Individuation}}
In analytical psychology, individuation is the process by which the individual self develops out of an undifferentiated [[Unconscious mind|unconscious]] – seen as a developmental [[Psyche (psychology)|psychic process]] during which innate elements of personality, the components of the immature psyche, and the [[Experience (disambiguation)|experience]]s of the person's life become, if the process is more or less successful, integrated over time into a well-functioning whole.<ref>{{Citation|date=2015-06-26|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315745541-12|work=Living Archetypes|pages=70–85|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781315745541-12 |access-date=2022-01-21|title=The Stages of Life, Chapter 3 of Jung: A Very Short Introduction (1994/2001) |isbn=9781315745541 }}</ref> Other psychoanalytic theorists describe it as the stage where an individual transcends group attachment and narcissistic self-absorption.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Simone de Beauvoir's Philosophy of Individuation: The Problem of the Second Sex|last=Hengehold|first=Laura|date=2017|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=9781474418874|location=Edinburgh|pages=41}}</ref>

===In the news industry===
The news industry has begun using the term ''individuation'' to denote new printing and on-line technologies that permit [[mass customization]] of the contents of a newspaper, a magazine, a broadcast program, or a website so that its contents match each user's unique interests. This differs from the traditional [[mass-media]] practice of producing the same contents for all readers, viewers, listeners, or on-line users.

Communications theorist [[Marshall McLuhan]] alluded to this trend when discussing the future of printed books in an electronically interconnected world in the 1970s and 1980s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Walinga |first=Jennifer |url=https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/2-2-psychodynamic-and-behavioural-psychology/ |title=INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY – 1ST CANADIAN EDITION |date=October 17, 2014 |publisher=BCcampus |isbn=978-1-77420-005-6 |edition=1 |publication-date=October 17, 2014 |language=en |chapter=2.2 Psychodynamic Psychology |quote=Marshall McLuhan, the communications theorist, alluded to this trend in customization when discussing the future of printed books in an electronically interconnected world (McLuhan & Nevitt, 1972).}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=McLuhan |first1=Marshall |title=Take today: the executive as dropout |last2=Nevitt |first2=Barrington |date=1972 |publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich |isbn=978-0-15-187830-7 |location=New York |publication-date=1972 |pages=146 |language=en}}</ref>

===In privacy and data protection law===
From around 2016, coinciding with increased government regulation of the collection and handling of personal data, most notably the [[GDPR]] in EU Law, individuation has been used to describe the ‘singling out’ of a person from a crowd – a threat to privacy, autonomy and dignity.<ref name="Individuation - re-thinking the scope of privacy laws">{{cite web |last1=Johnston |first1=Anna |title=Individuation - re-thinking the scope of privacy laws |url=https://www.salingerprivacy.com.au/2016/08/30/individuation/ |website=www.salingerprivacy.com.au |access-date=30 August 2016}}</ref><ref name="Graham">{{cite journal |last1=Greenleaf |first1=Graham |last2=Livingston |first2=Scott |title=China's Personal Information Standard: The Long March to a Privacy Law |journal=Privacy Laws & Business International Report |date=2017 |issue=150 |pages=25–28 |ssrn=3128593 |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3128593 |access-date=4 March 2018}}</ref>    
Most data protection and privacy laws turn on the identifiability of an individual as the threshold criterion for when data subjects will need legal protection. However, privacy advocates argue privacy harms can also arise from the ability to [[disambiguation|disambiguate]] or ‘single out’ a person.  Doing so enables the person, at an individual level, to be tracked, profiled, targeted, contacted, or subject to a decision or action which impacts them - even if their civil or legal ‘identity’ is not known (or knowable).  

In some jurisdictions the wording of the statute already ''includes'' the concept of individuation.<ref>e.g., 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) section 1798.140(o)(1).</ref> In other jurisdictions regulatory guidance has suggested that the concept of 'identification' includes individuation - i.e., the process by which an individual can be 'singled out' or distinguished from all other members of a group.<ref>[https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/documentation/opinion-recommendation/files/2007/wp136_en.pdf Article 29 Working Party ‘Opinion 4/2007 on the concept of personal data’ (WP 136, 20 June 2007)]</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-guidance-for-organisations-and-government-agencies/handling-personal-information/what-is-personal-information|title=What is personal information?|date=March 10, 2023|website=OAIC}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/AICmr/2021/50.html|title=Commissioner initiated investigation into 7-Eleven Stores Pty Ltd (Privacy) (Corrigendum dated 12 October 2021) [2021] AICmr 50 (29 September 2021)}}</ref>     

However, where privacy and data protection statutes use only the word ‘identification’ or ‘identifiability’, different court decisions mean that there is not necessarily a consensus about whether the legal concept of identification already encompasses individuation<ref>[https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/google-v-vidal-hall-judgment.pdf Vidal-Hall v Google Inc 2015 -  EWCA Civ 311 at 115]</ref> or not.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=184668&doclang=EN|title=CURIA - Documents|website=curia.europa.eu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|title=From knowing by name to targeting: the meaning of identification under the GDPR|first=Nadezhda|last=Purtova|date=June 21, 2022|journal=International Data Privacy Law|volume=12|issue=3|pages=163–183|doi=10.1093/idpl/ipac013|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Rapid advances in technologies including [[artificial intelligence]], and video [[surveillance]] coupled with [[facial recognition systems]] have now altered the digital environment to such an extent that ‘not identifiable by name’ is no longer an effective proxy for ‘will suffer no privacy harm’. Many data protection laws may require redrafting to give adequate protection to privacy interests, by explicitly regulating individuation as well as identification of individual people.<ref name="Individuation2">{{cite journal |last1=Johnston |first1=Anna |title=Individuation: Re-imagining Data Privacy Laws to Protect Against Digital Harms |journal=Brussels Privacy Hub |date=2020 |volume=6 |issue=24 |url=https://brusselsprivacyhub.eu/publications/wp624.html |format=electronic}}</ref>

===In physics===
Two [[quantum entanglement|quantum entangled]] particles cannot be understood independently. Two or more states in [[quantum superposition]], e.g., as in [[Schrödinger's cat]] being simultaneously dead and alive, is mathematically not the same as assuming the cat is in an individual alive state with 50% probability. The Heisenberg's [[uncertainty principle]] says that [[Complementarity (physics)|complementary variables]], such as [[Position (vector)|position]] and [[momentum]], cannot both be precisely known – in some sense, they are not individual variables. A ''natural criterion of individuality'' has been suggested.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Jaeger|first1=Gregg|title=Individuation in Quantum Mechanics|journal=Foundations of Physics|date=2011|volume=41|issue=3|pages=299–304|doi=10.1007/s10701-009-9382-x|bibcode=2011FoPh...41..299J|s2cid=120353069}}</ref>