Privacy Revisited
A Global Perspective on the Right to Be Left Alone
Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr
Rapid technological change, the advent of Big Data,
and the creation of society-wide government surveillance programs have
transformed the accessibility of highly personal information; these
developments have highlighted the ambiguous treatment of privacy and personal
intimacy. National legal systems vouchsafe and define "privacy," and
its first cousin "dignity," in different ways that reflect local
legal and cultural values. Yet, in an increasingly globalized world, purely
local protection of privacy interests may prove insufficient to safeguard
effectively fundamental autonomy interests - interests that lie at the core of
self-definition, personal autonomy, and freedom.
Privacy Revisited articulates the legal meanings of
privacy and dignity through the lens of comparative law, and argues that the
concept of privacy requires a more systematic approach if it is to be useful in
framing and protecting certain fundamental autonomy interests. The book begins
by providing relevant, and reasonably detailed, information about both the
substantive and procedural protections of privacy/dignity in the U.S., Canada,
South Africa, the United Kingdom, and among Council of Europe member states.
Second, the book explores the inherent tension between affording significant
legal protection to the right of privacy (or human dignity) and securing
expressive freedoms, notably including the freedom of speech and of the press.
The author then posits that the protection of privacy helps to illuminate some
of the underlying social and political values that lead the U.S. to fail to
protect privacy as reliably or as comprehensively as other liberal democracies.
Finally, the book establishes that although privacy and speech come into
conflict with some regularity, it is both useful and necessary to start
thinking about the important ways in which both rights are integral to the
maintenance of democratic self-government.
