Privacy White Paper

Introduction

What is Privacy?
Despite the multitude of academic papers and legal jurisprudence devoted to the subject, the concept of privacy remains difficult to define. Privacy connotes a number of varied yet interconnected interests. Many learned legal and academic authorities have attempted to encapsulate the essence of the concept in pithy phrases. Amongst such definitions are "the right to be left alone," "the right to exercise control over information about oneself" and "the ability to control the use and disclosure of one's personal information".

However, the desire to define the parameters of the right to privacy highlights the conflicts between opposing interests that is inherent in protecting individual privacy, such as the tension between the right to privacy over personal and sensitive data, and the lauded values of freedom of speech or freedom of the press. Moreover, it is fair to say that many of the commonly perceived views regarding the sanctity of the right to privacy are at odds with the reality of the technological society in which we live, where the disclosure of personal information, for example bank numbers, addresses, age, etc., is commonplace in modern daily life.

As a result, today's world presents issues for the scope and protection of individual rights that could not have been imagined even thirty years ago, far less by those who drafted documents like the US Constitution and Bill of Rights or gave judgements in legal cases. Given the emotive nature of the concept of privacy and the conflicts that have beset its protection, it is not surprising that it is considered the 'scarlet pimpernel' of the legal world. It is the very core of the concept that is most subjective, and it is this subjectivity that makes it difficult to define. Privacy, like the law, is "rooted in a series of objective value judgements about morality or justice, or it is about nothing".

As a result, today's world presents issues for the scope and protection of individual rights that could not have been imagined even thirty years ago, far less by those who drafted documents like the US Constitution and Bill of Rights or past judgements in legal cases.

Given the emotive nature of the concept of privacy and the conflicts that have beset its protection, it is not surprising that it is considered the 'scarlet pimpernel' of the legal world. It is the very core of the concept that is most subjective, and it is this subjectivity that makes it difficult to define. Privacy, like the law, is "rooted in a series of objective value judgements about morality or justice, or it is about nothing".

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