Privacy laws

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."

For a comprehensive global summary of data privacy laws (2015), click here to access Greenleaf’s article documenting the change of privacy regulations throughout the international landscape.

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