Right to privacy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
"The Right to Privacy" redirects here. For the law review article, see The Right to Privacy (article).


Since the global surveillance disclosures of 2013, the inalienable human right to privacy has been a subject of international debate. Under the pretext of combatting 'terrorists', controversial agencies such as the NSA, CIA, RAW, GCHQ, and others have engaged in mass global surveillance, undermining the right to privacy. The violation of this human right has come under the context of other human rights violations committed by Nato-member states (i.e. the unlawful detention of enemy combatants or civilians at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Grahib, and other Black sites, and extraordinary rendition). There is now question as to whether the right to privacy can co-exist with the current capabilities of government agencies to access and analyse virtually every detail of an individual's life. A major question is whether or not the right to privacy needs to be forfeited as part of the social contract in order to bolster defence against alleged terrorist threats.





In recent years there have been only few attempts to clearly and precisely define a "right to privacy." In 2005, students of the Haifa Center for Law & Technology asserted that in fact the right to privacy "should not be defined as a separate legal right" at all. By their reasoning, existing laws relating to privacy in general should be sufficient.[3] Other experts, such as Dean Prosser, have attempted, but failed, to find a "common ground" between the leading kinds of privacy cases in the court system, at least to formulate a definition.[3] One law school treatise from Israel, however, on the subject of "privacy in the digital environment," suggests that the "right to privacy should be seen as an independent right that deserves legal protection in itself." It has therefore proposed a working definition for a "right to privacy":


An individual right[edit]


Each individual is continually engaged in a personal adjustment process in which he balances the desire for privacy with the desire for disclosure and communication of himself to others, in light of the environmental conditions and social norms set by the society in which he lives. - Alan Westin, Privacy and Freedom, 1968[4]



Richard Posner and Lawrence Lessig focus on the economic aspects of personal information control. Posner criticizes privacy for concealing information, which reduces market efficiency. For Posner, employment is selling oneself in the labour market, which he believes is like selling a product. Any 'defect' in the 'product' that is not reported is fraud.[6] For Lessig, privacy breaches online can be regulated through code and law. Lessig claims "the protection of privacy would be stronger if people conceived of the right as a property right", and that "individuals should be able to control information about themselves".[7] Economic approaches to privacy make communal conceptions of privacy difficult to maintain.

A collective value and a human right[edit]

There have been attempts to reframe privacy as a fundamental human right, whose social value is an essential component in the functioning of democratic societies.[8] Amitai Etzioni suggests a communitarian approach to privacy. This requires a shared moral culture for establishing social order.[9] Etzioni believes that "[p]rivacy is merely one good among many others",[10] and that technological effects depend on community accountability and oversight (ibid). He claims that privacy laws only increase government surveillance.[11]



Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948[edit]


United States[edit]


The 1890 Warren and Brandeis article "The Right To Privacy", is often cited as the first implicit declaration of a U.S. right to privacy.[2] This right is frequently debated. Strict constructionists[who?] argue that no such right exists (or at least that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to protect such a right), while some civil libertarians[who?] argue that the right invalidates many types of currently allowed civil surveillance (wiretaps, public cameras, etc.).


  2. Public disclosure of embarrassing private facts;
  4. Appropriation of name or likeness.

Also, in some American jurisdictions the use of a person's name as a keyword under Google's AdWords for advertising or trade purposes without the person's consent[14] has raised certain personal privacy concerns. [15]

On March 11th, 2015, Intelligence Squared US, an organization that stages oxford style debates, held an event centered on the question, "Should the U.S. adopt the 'Right to be Forgotten' online?" The side against the motion won with a 56% majority of the voting audience.[16]



Mass surveillance and privacy[edit]

Governmental organisations such as the NSA, CIA, and GCHQ amongst others conduct mass surveillance throughout the world. Programmes such as PRISM, MYSTIC, and other operations conducted by Nato-member states are capable of collecting a vast quantity of metadata, internet history, and even actual recordings of phone-calls from various countries. The existence of programmes is justified by their conductors in terms of supposed benefits for defence and law enforcement, however this is also in conflict with the right to privacy established under various treaties, constitutions, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The argument in favour of privacy has therefore come under a larger opposition to intelligence operations carried out for political purposes, and has become a contentious issue since it undermines the perceived need of nations to spy on the general population in order to maintain their power structures.

Arguments for and against the right to privacy[edit]


  • The right to privacy is alluded to the fourth amendment to the US constitution, which states that 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[18]'. The logical extension of this amendment to digital properties would make sense given that were the internet to have existed when the bill of rights was written, digital documents would have been considered more important than 'papers' as mentioned in the literal text.
  • Privacy is one of the rights that were absent in the society of Oceania in George Orwell's 1984. Without privacy, there would be nothing to stop a 'Big Brother'-like entity from taking control of every aspect of life.


  • The nothing to hide argument is an argument which states that government data mining and surveillance programs do not threaten privacy unless they uncover some illegal activities, and that if they do uncover illegal activities, the person committing these activities does not have the right to keep them private. Hence, a person who favors this argument may state "I've got nothing to hide" and therefore does not express opposition to government data mining and surveillance.[20]
  • In wake of the Snowden scandal, governments have claimed that there is an existential terrorist threat which warrants the obsoletion of the so-called right to privacy.

See also[edit]


  • Mordini, Emilio. "Nothing to Hide — Biometrics, Privacy and Private Sphere." In: Schouten, Ben, Niels Christian Juul, Andrzej Drygajlo, and Massimo Tistarelli (editors). Biometrics and Identity Management: First European Workshop, BIOID 2008, Roskilde, Denmark, May 7-9, 2008, Revised Selected Papers. Springer Science+Business Media, 2008. p. 245-258. ISBN 3540899901, 9783540899907.


  1. ^ The Privacy Torts
  2. ^ a b Warren and Brandeis, "The Right To Privacy", 4 Harvard Law Review 193 (1890)
  4. ^ Westin, A. (1968). Privacy and freedom (Fifth ed.). New York, U.S.A.: Atheneum.
  6. ^ Posner, R. A. (1981). The economics of privacy. The American Economic Review, 71(2), 405-409.
  8. ^ Johnson, Deborah (2009). Beauchamp, Bowie, Arnold, ed. Ethical theory and business. (8th ed. ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall. pp. 428–442. ISBN 0136126022. 
  9. ^ Etzioni, A. (2006). Communitarianism. In B. S. Turner (Ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (pp. 81-83). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  10. ^ Etzioni, A. (2007). Are new technologies the enemy of privacy? Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 20, 115-119.
  11. ^ Etzioni, A. (2000). A communitarian perspective on privacy. Connecticut Law Review, 32(3), 897-905.
  15. ^ "Robert L. Habush and Daniel A. Rottier, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. William M. Cannon, Patrick O. Dunphy and Cannon & Dunphy, S.C., Defendants-Respondents." (PDF). Case No.: 2011AP1769. Court of Appeals of Wisconsin Published Opinion. Opinion Filed: February 21, 2013. Retrieved 5 March 2014.  Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1252-the-u-s-should-adopt-the-right-to-be-forgotten-online
  18. ^ Official Bill of Rights in the National Archives
  19. ^ Sprenger, Polly. "Sun on Privacy: 'Get Over It'." Wired. January 26, 1999. Retrieved on June 29, 2013.
  20. ^ Mordini, p. 252.
  1. ^ Effects are items of property.[17]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]