Privacy and the Limits of Law

Journal of Social Issues, 1977

Meanings of privacy in everyday speech, in behavioral and social science, and in American law are compared. A variety of independent meanings emerge within each domain, and these distinctions are repeated across domains. A common‐core definition is proposed that appears to be consistent with these meanings. One behavioral theory that attempts to bring conceptual order to the various meanings of privacy is reviewed, and the review is extended to a general commentary on the current status of behavioral theories of privacy. Future tasks and directions for establishing a more complete understanding of privacy are indicated, including the explication of theoretical systems and the creation of linkages across disciplines and concepts.

The Introduction shows that privacy can be conceptualised in terms of seclusion and solitude, anonymity and confidentiality, intimacy and domesticity, so that it is unnecessary to agree on a definition of privacy in order to analyse it philosophically. It shows that democratic theory and practice provide a set of working assumptions about what is valuable and right, equal and unequal, free and unfree which enable us to distinguish privacy from other values, and to resolve those disagreements about its nature and value which are, in fact, resolvable by some combination of theory and practice.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)- Scopus Indexed, 2019

The Concept and definition of the privacy has been changed during the time affecting by different factors. At the same time, the boundaries of privacy may differ from one place to another affecting by the culture, religion, etc. Nonetheless, there is not a unique general accepted definition for the privacy. Privacy has been considered from different disciplines like sociology, psychology, law and philosophy. It is a multidisciplinary domain, having an easy concept but difficult to define. However, by reviewing all different viewpoints, it can be concluded that privacy is an individual tendency, wish and natural need to be away from others' control and surveillance. Moreover, it is the physical as well as impalpable limits of an individual who likes to be free from others intrusion. The present review, is a doctrinal legal study on background, concept, limits and legal development of privacy through comparative and descriptive approach in order to offer a general and understandable idea of the right to privacy.

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2016

Technology, work and globalization, 2024

Philosophical approaches to privacy focus on clarifying its many dimensions, providing a conceptual foundation for thinking about privacy in deep and fruitful ways. The modern concept of privacy developed as new technologies, such as print media and photography, made new types of exploitation possible. In response to the possibility of these new harms, legal and philosophical theorists began to develop analyses of privacy, including the concept of privacy rights and justifications for protecting privacy. Some philosophers have noted that there is no single concept of privacy. Instead, privacy can refer to a variety of different things, such

In: Keresztes, Gábor (ed.): Tavaszi Szél 2016 Tanulmánykötet I., Budapest, Doktoranduszok Országos Szövetsége, 2016

The protection of privacy cannot be separated from technological development: nowadays, due to the development of science and technology, the possibility to intrude into someone's privacy has increased. The law has to react to these changes, ensuring the legal protection of privacy. However, in order to ensure this protection, first of all it is necessary to determine the subject of this protection: privacy. Privacy itself is as old as mankind, however, it was not always a legally protected right. What is considered to be private and what is legally protected as private can differ. One of the most important issues concerning legal privacy protection is that -according to several privacy scholars and the European Court of Human Rights -it is not possible to give an exhaustive legal definition of the subject of privacy protection. The importance of privacy can be related to the fact that privacy has a very close connection with human dignity, freedom and independence of the individual, and it is more and more challenged in the age of the rapid technological development of the information society. The aim of the study is to present the historical development of privacy in order to better understand the concept of privacy and to find a solution to how privacy can be effectively protected in the information society. First, I am going to discuss the short history of privacy, then its already existing definitions, then the way international -especially European -legal regulations regulate the protection of private life, and finally I am going to outline the current challenges posed by the information society. As a result of my study, I will make some recommendations about how the existing regulations should protect privacy nowadays.

European Data Protection Law Review, 2018

Ethics and information technology, 2009

James Rachels' seminal paper ''Why Privacy Is Important'' (1975) remains one of the most influential statements on the topic. It offers a general theory that explains why privacy is important in relation to mundane personal information and situations. According to the ...

McGill Law Journal, 2000

In recent years there has been a remarkable convergence across several common law jurisdictions regarding the need to recognize some form of a tort of invasion of privacy, particularly with respect to the publication of private facts. Despite this convergence, the author argues that there remains a palpable “containment anxiety” at play in the jurisprudence that is responsible for a number of recurring tensions regarding the scope of protection. Instead of focusing on the question of how to define privacy, this paper frames the containment anxiety at issue in the cases in terms of a justificatory dilemma rather than a definitional one. Using the work of Mill and Kant, the author argues that if we understand privacy rights as protecting either the value of autonomy or freedom from harm then we can justify a narrow legal right to privacy. Although this can explain the containment anxiety in the jurisprudence, it severely undermines the growing recognition of the importance of privacy....

Law and the Philosophy of Privacy, 2015

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, 2017

The right to privacy seems to occupy an entirely natural place within the structure of human rights; for many years now there has been an established jurisprudence on the right to privacy coming from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. At the same time, there have been fundamental conceptual (Thomson, Geuss) and normative (McKinnon) criticisms of the right to privacy. Against these critics, I argue, first, that it is possible to articulate a systematic normative conception of privacy, which explains and supports a general right to privacy; and second, that the right to privacy lies at the very heart of a human right to freedom and autonomy. Without reference to a right to privacy, many other rights to freedom are not realizable. I first develop a normative conception of privacy and its different dimensions, and in a second step take a closer look at the jurisprudence of the ECHR by considering some examples, in order to understand what role the right to privacy plays in the Court's decisions. The right to privacy, far from being reducible to other rights or detrimental to the rights and needs of women, occupies a central place on the list of human rights.

European Data Protection Law Review, 2018