Right to privacy
As provided by the Human Rights Act 1998, everyone has a right to privacy. Privacy can adopt many meanings. For some people privacy is to ensure that their personal belongings are not being trespassed. For other people, privacy means that their personal information (marital status, occupation, name, address, sexual orientation, medical information etc) is kept confidential. Other privacy forms include: internet privacy, non public exposure of image or video without consent etc. According to Samuel D Warrent and Louis D Brandeis, privacy is the "right to be let alone".
As privacy is a very serious matter and the government acknowledges this, a series of laws came into force in order to protect citizens’ right to privacy.
Some of them include:
Ø Article 8-the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence
Ø Confidential information
Ø Data Protection
(For a further explanation on each of the above can be found directly from the website retrieved).
However, while legislators claim that citizens’ right to privacy is well protected under the umbrella of laws, at the same time there is evidence which suggests that our privacy is being invaded on a daily basis. Inspired from the sources provided at the end of the text, I would like to raise some everyday issues regarding our privacy and its limits.
It is my understanding that nowadays we can only find privacy in our house. It is my observation, that from the moment we walk from our doorstep, we are exposed to CCTV which monitors our every movement. I was reading a survey in a website which, inter alia, stated that UK citizens are captured by CCTV on average over 300 times a day.
Moreover, I noticed that while walking on the street people will often go to other people and ask for their name, address, credit card details. Often these details are given to private companies who use them for their own purposes. Lately, I was reading on the newspapers that some companies were found to share people’s private information with other private organisations. If someone starts a research for privacy, he will find out that some organisations aim to gain easy access on our personal details. Many ways are used in order to succeed this. Some of them are mentioned above and other cannot be mentioned in this short text. Therefore, I conclude that for some our private information is valuable.
Internet is the best place for these organisations to retrieve all the information they need. Some argue that the internet access of every citizen is monitored. Big internet companies make sure our information is invaded. Many people are fighting to protect their personal details while other people provide an easy access to their. As regards to the latter, Jeffrey Rosen said in one of his videos that people often do not want to share their personal information with their families, friends, colleagues etc. However, they create online profiles in social networks and expose their everyday life in them.
What I suggest is that laws do not seem to fully protect someone’s right to privacy. I believe that our privacy should be the focus for the next relevant legislation that will come into force.
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