Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and in many other international treaties. Privacy underpins human dignity and other key values such as freedom of association and freedom of speech. It has become one of the most important human rights issues of the modern age.

 

The innovations in technology and communication seen in the last century have been concurrent with the development of various methods of surveillance and intervention into individuals’ private information. Prioritising security issues and law enforcement, governments have placed surveillance on individual's movements, cash flows, businesses and methods of communication, including telephone calls and emails.

 

The issue of privacy was brought to the forefront of news by the recent NSA-PRISM scandal. It is alleged that the United States of American National Security Agency runs a program known as PRISM. The exact specifications of the program are unconfirmed, but it is believed that it allows the US government to access emails, Instant Messages, photos, voice calls and login details of individuals using websites and programs associated with Facebook, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft, among others. It is often the case that individuals are not even aware that government or other companies have access to such information, which they believe to be private.

 

Unfortunately, human rights mechanisms and other authorities have failed to advance legislation and frameworks along with the technological developments and the increasing trends on surveillance practices, and have yet to assess their implications on the rights to privacy and freedom of expression. Insufficient national and international frameworks create an environment in which citizen’s right to privacy is easily encroached upon, leading to human rights violations and a lack of accountability.

How much private personal information should a government be able to know about an individual without breaching their right to privacy? What would amount to a valid “suspected security issues” that would motivate breaching a person’s right to privacy? These are the kind of questions the UN Human Rights Council will have to consider, in an attempt to decide if in a world dominated by Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and others, is our right to privacy threatened.