# Defining Privacy Let us start with privacy. **Privacy is your right to control your personal or other information**—what is shared, with whom, when, and why. For example, you may be comfortable sharing your name and age with a movie streaming service, but maybe you do not want to share your personal address. That is privacy in action. **Anonymity, on the other hand, means concealing your identity altogether.** In an anonymous system, no one—not even the service provider—knows who you are. Now, here is the key point: anonymity is not the same as privacy. Anonymity hides who you are while Privacy lets you control what people see. In this context, **there is also a third term to consider: confidentiality.** This latter one means making sure information is only accessible to the right people. A good example is your medical records—your doctor, the doctor of your choice, can access them, but just him or her, not anyone in the hospital. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://hub.bsvblockchain.org/higher-learning/bsv-academy/identity-and-privacy-foundations/privacy-vs-anonymity-whats-the-real-difference/defining-privacy.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.