Privacy law

Privacy law refers to the laws that deal with the regulation, storage, and use of personal information about individuals, which can be collected by governments and other public as well as private organizations.

Privacy laws are considered in the context of an individual's privacy rights or within reasonable expectation of privacy.

Privacy laws can be broadly classified into:

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which was drafted and adopted by the Council of Europe in 1950 and currently covers the whole European continent except for Belarus and Kosovo, protects the right to respect for private life: "Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." Through the huge case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, privacy has been defined and its protection has been established as a positive right of everyone.

Data privacy laws are converging in the EU, helped by the National data protection authorities and the Data Protection Directive adopted in 1995.

Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations of 1966 also protects privacy: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

The current state of privacy law in Australia includes Federal and state information privacy legislation, some sector-specific privacy legislation at state level, regulation of the media and some criminal sanctions. The current position concerning civil causes of action for invasion of privacy is unclear: some courts have indicated that a tort of invasion of privacy may exist in Australia. However this has not been upheld by the higher courts, which have been content to develop the equitable doctrine of Breach of Confidence to protect privacy, following the example set by the UK. In 2008, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended the enactment of a statutory cause of action for invasion of privacy.

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