Privacy and Human Rights - Part II

                This summary is from the same report from last week and published at http://gilc.org/privacy/survey/intro.html

               Privacy can be defined as a fundamental human right. The law of privacy can be traced as far as 1361, when the Justices of the Peace Act in England provided for the arrest of peeping toms and eavesdroppers. In 1765. British Lord Camden, striking down a warrant to enter a house and seize papers wrote, "We can safely say there is no law in this country to justify the defendants in what they have done; if there was, it would destroy all the conforts of society, for papers are often the dearest property any man can have." Parliamentarian William Pitt wrote, "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow though it; the rain may enter - but the king of England can't enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement." various countries developed specific protections for privacy in the centuries that followed. In 1776, the Swedish Parliament enacted the "Access to Public Records Act" which required that all government-held information be used for legitimate purposes. In 1792, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen declared that private property is inviolable and sacred. France prohibited the publication of private facts and set stiff fines in 1858. The modern privacy benchmark at an international level can be found in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which specifically protected territorial and communications privacy. Article 12 states: "No one should be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks on his honour or reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interferences or attacks." Numerous international human rights covenants give specific reference to privacy as a right. For numerous Anglo-Saxon and French authors, the right to respect private life is the right to privacy, the right to live, as far as one wishes. However, the right to respect for private life doesn't end there. It comprises also, to a certain degree, the right to establish and develop relationships with other human beings, especially in the emotional field. Interest in the right of privacy increased in the 1960s and 1970s  with the advent of information technology (IT). The surveillance potential of powerful computer systems prompted demands for specific rules governing the collection and handling of personal information. The genesis of modern legislation in this area can be traced to the first data protection law in the world enacted in Germany in 1970. This was followed by national laws in Sweden (1973), U.S. (1974), and France (1978). In the past three years, the European Union has enacted two directives which will provide citizens with a wider range of protections over abuses. The directives set a baseline common level of privacy which not only reinforces current data protection law, but which extends it to establish a range of new rights. The Data Protection Directive sets a benchmark for national law which will harmonize law throughout the European Union. The Telecommunications Directive establishes specific protections covering telephone, digital TV, mobile networks and other telecommunications systems. The regulatory model adopted by Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc is that of a public official who enforces data protection law. This official, known variously as a Commissioner, Ombudsman or Registrar, monitors compliance with the law and conducts investigations into alleged breaches. The official is also responsible for public education and international liaison in data protection and data transfer. However, the powers of the commission vary greatly and many report a serious lack of resources to adequately enforce the laws. Some countries such as the U.S. have avoided general data protection rules in favor of specific sectoral laws governing, for example, financial privacy. In such cases, enforcement is achieved through a range of mechanisms. The problem with this approach is that it requires that new legislation be introduced with each new tech so protection frequently lag behind. Data protection can also be achieved, at least in theory, through various forms of self regulation, in which companies and industry bodies establish codes of practice. However, the record of these efforts has been disappointing, with little or no evidence that the aims of the codes are regularly fulfilled. Adequacy and enforcement are the major problem with these approaches. Over the past decade the internet has become an important tool for communication and research. The tech is growing at an exponential rate, with millions of new users going on line each year. The internet is also used increasingly as a tool for commercial transactions. But this fluid structure has not protected the internet from interception and control. Human rights groups demand that email interception should not be treated differently than telephone interception. In recent years, the use of video surveillance cameras (also called Closed Circuit Television) CCTV throughout the world has grown to unprecedented levels. These systems involve sophisticated tech. Features include night vision, computer assited operaton, and motion detection which allow the operator to instruct the system to go on red alert when anything moves in view of the cameras. The tech will ultimately converge with software programs that are capable of automated recognition of faces, crowd behavior analysis, and intimate scanning of the area between skin surface and clothes. The power and capabilities of cameras will increase, while the cost and size will decrease. It is reasonable to assume that covert visual surveillance will in some environment be ubiquitous.