Privacy
Personal information has never been as accessible as it is today. The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that most users do not know the basic safety rules of online communication and the use of social networks. However, the continuous development of the existing and the introduction of new techniques requires taking adequate measures to ensure the right to privacy of the Internet users.
Social networking, geo-social services, and micro-blogging service with their settings that encourage users to share their own information are the most important killers of privacy. Moreover, if we mention mobile tracking technologies that allow one to set the location of each person, who is close to a mobile phone, it becomes clear that escaping in our time is almost impossible. One can do this only if we abandon the use of the Internet, mobile communications, and such familiar things such as credit cards, which also allow tracking the location of a person.
There are a lot of facts about the role of technology and its impact on privacy. Most researchers suggest that this impact is completely terrible and irrevocable. This exploratory essay is a combination of different attitudes and their analysis. The results showed that most researchers see an immense threat for privacy from the side of technology.
The right to privacy and the Internet are two phenomena that have appeared in the twentieth century. The first one arose earlier; the second was invented half a century later. The more time we spend online, the less room we have for privacy.
Privacy is a term frequently used in literature, but nowadays, there is no consensus about what exactly is meant by this word. According to the definition that is provided by online vocabulary, privacy is the condition of being concealed or hidden or the quality of being secluded from the presence of view of others. There are many cases when people do not want something to be known by others. That is the reason why they make those things private. In addition to this, if we consider privacy from the humanitarian viewpoint, then we will see that, on the one hand, humanity has always strived for cooperation in order to share its problems with others. However, on the other hand, a person seeks to protect his/her secrets as the desire to stay alone is a natural demand of people.
A closer look at the data indicates that nowadays the issue of privacy is quite important. There could be provided numerous arguments in order to support the importance of privacy.
First of all, it is protection from the misuse of personal information. It concerns, for example, people with mental illnesses. If the fact that a person has suffered this kind of disease is made public, it may lead to the situation when one goes through derision of other people which, in turn, may harm his/her feelings very much. By the way, a person may become a victim of such crimes as blackmail and extortion because of “wrong people” having access to his/her personal information.
Secondly, a proper degree of privacy is a key factor in establishing stable relationships. It means that there still should be some intimacy. Privacy is necessarily related to ends and relations of the most fundamental sort: respect, love, friendship and trust... without privacy they are simply inconceivable.
Another issue may be considered as a part of the above-mentioned argument – human dignity, but still, there is a reason to discuss it as well. It is autonomy. Maybe the most important question is a personal freedom. Based on the evidence currently available, it seems reasonable to suggest that the representatives of the present generation are obliged to play various roles depending on the circumstances. In order to achieve success and get one’s place in the society, it is extremely important to be aware what information and for whom should be private and vice versa. That is why, on these grounds, we can argue that if we do not pay a proper attention to the degree of privacy revelation, it could make the “face diversity” impossible.
Last but not least, power is also important. Privacy is claimed to be an efficient tool of social control. It means that if people know that their actions are constantly observed, they try to avoid making any wrong things. That is why, people need some spare space to break social rules in order to create and show their personal individuality. Furthermore, one may lose their individuality by posting everything on the Internet as well as democracy whose existence is impossible without creativity and unobstructed exchange of thoughts.
Privacy became an extremely important issue for individuals especially in the law area in recent years. That is why constitutionality of privacy is worth talking about.
The direct reason for elaborating the first law concept of privacy was the publication in Boston newspapers some details of a simple wedding. Indignant bride’s father who was a lawyer, in collaboration with his colleague, decided to create a legal conception, which would protect private life of a person from the disturbance of other people. They wrote in their article that modern inventions and business methods demand steps that should be made in order to protect individuals. To their mind, right to privacy it is the right to let be alone.
The right to privacy got international recognition when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 18 December 1948. Here, in the 12th article, it is said, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, or to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks”.
The Government of the United States of America has been avoiding the adoption of the general law for the protection of data; however, it elaborated rules for some spheres. So-called liberal approach, which is based on the policy of non-interference into the relations between private persons, determines peculiarities of national regime the protection of personal data in the private sector in the USA and other countries.
Professor Mark Rotenberg, who is an American human rights activist, argues that the US laws of personal data protection are the answer to the question that remained unregulated by case law or an effort of codification of legal standards for their application in order to conduct commercial transactions with using new technologies.
Based on the available evidence, it seems logical to suggest that technology makes an extremely huge impact on the privacy issue. The question of the technology’s influence has caused a lot of discussion in recent publications.
Infrastructures that have been created by the state for people are artificial. Furthermore, limitations that the government aims to establish for our private life are not natural.
By taking into account the global scope of the Internet, the conditions of private life in the 21st century make the whole world worry. In spite of the fact that there arise some urgent problems connected with the consequences of technology’s impact on the sanctity of the private life, security as well as cybercrimes, old privacy laws have been still applied to the new technologies. The reason for it is that different countries are trying to cope with different problems.
New issues of inviolability of personal life are constantly appearing. The last achievement of this process concerns Google; it has made some changes in its privacy policy. This cooperation is possible for the reason of Google being under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission. That is why there is no need in elaborating new legal rules for each case.
Nevertheless, with the technology development, the importance of a question of personal data protection has been accentuated. The leading keystone that is used for asserting the right of privacy is a principle of balance between an individual’s right and a society’s rights. The very rate of this balance has been hotly discussed recently.
In every civilized country, the right to privacy is one of the fundamental rights. Government is trying to know as much about us as possible to restrict our right to confidentiality of information, and it is quite successful in this activity. Generally, according to the words of the American President, the government does not give rights; it only selects them. However, the government cannot keep track of us without a legitimate reason.
If the state passes a law on the protection of privacy, it is just empty words. Moreover, they will remain empty as people do not feel the need to respect this right. Until that happens, these laws will only assist the state to take control of private life of its citizens. People should realize that no one has the right to interfere in their privacy, and electronic communications should be used as a means of communication, not the tracking tool.
For example, in some states, the government is trying to restrict the Internet using all means, for example, lying that the Internet poses a threat of spreading pornography, drugs, and so on. However, it is false as it is not the essence of the Internet. As in any phenomenon, there are problems, but the government must leave people the right to decide in each case instead of imposing restrictions.
Overall, I think that the right to privacy of personal information is an integral part of the right to respect for private life, not the right of access to information. Specificity of the protection of the private information is determined by the need to ascertain the competing interests in protecting the unauthorized disclosure or other use of information including the interest of the state and other bodies to use personal information. This right is not absolute and is subject to proportional limit defined by the law including the interests of free speech as well as the fight against crime.