Free-Expression Vs Privacy

It is possible to see the rights to free expression and privacy as being two sides of the same coin, with the right to privacy enabling ordinary individuals the autonomy and dignity to independently develop and impart their ideas, opinions and information. The right to privacy provides the space and security necessary for individuals to seek out and receive information. Both rights play an essential role in placing fundamental restraints on the exercise of power by those who possess it – governments and their agents, as well as corporate actors and public figures.

The contest between free expression and privacy is particularly acute in the context of internet publishing platforms, social media networks and search engines that facilitate the

From the 1970s onwards, the invention and public adoption of computers forced an expansion in understanding of what privacy rights are and how they can be infringed. Rather than simply the right to be let alone, privacy came to be considered as connected with, and essential to the protection of, information. In 1971 the German State of Hessen adopted the world's first “data protection” law, which sought to regulate the conditions under which public and private actors should handle individuals’ personal information; the first national law was adopted in Sweden in 1972. In 1983 the German Constitutional Court issued a landmark decision on the collection of census data in which it argued for greater protection of personal information, nothing that the right to privacy

THE RIGHT TO A REPUTATION? A more contested element, of the right to privacy which is relevant to the protection and promotion of the right to freedom of expression is the protection of a reputation. Reputation can be defined as the esteem in which one is held in society. Generally speaking, when someone’s reputation is negatively impacted through false statements of fact, an issue of defamation will arise.

NEW CHALLENGES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE

While privacy once generally meant, "I assume no one is looking," as one respondent put it, the public is beginning to accept the opposite: that someone usually is. And whether or not people accept it, that new normal—public life and mass surveillance as a default—will become a component of the ever-widening socioeconomic divide. Privacy as we know it today will become a luxury commodity. Opting out will be for the rich. To some extent that's already true. Consider the supermarkets that require you to fill out an application—including your name, address, phone number, and so on—in order to get a rewards card that unlocks coupons.

In the next 10 years, I would expect to see the development of more encryption technologies and boutique services for people prepared to pay a premium for greater control over their data. This is the creation of privacy as a luxury good. It also has the unfortunate effect of establishing a new divide: the privacy rich and the privacy poor. Whether genuine control over your information will be extended to the majority of people—and for free—seems very unlikely, without a much stronger policy