Privacy is a Human Right, not a Commodity

Nowadays, technological progress has created an interesting situation of severe tension and perceived incompatibility between the right to privacy and the extensive data gathering on which our digital economy is based.

In the last decade, both governments and giant corporations have become data miners, collecting information about every aspect of our activities, behaviour and lifestyle.

The intensive collection of data and the advantages of the new technologies have spawned the cynical idea that privacy is dead, and we might as well just get used to that fact.

Furthermore, one of the arguments that some people make about privacy is that individuals’ personal information should be treated as their property. At first, this may seem like an appealing idea. Why shouldn’t we be paid when companies use our data? But I think that is the wrong approach to privacy. Why? Simple.

Privacy is a human right.

This concept is the foundation for privacy regulation around the world. In 1948, the United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states, in Article 12:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2018 also recognizes privacy as a right to which every person is entitled. It begins with this observation:

(1) The protection of natural persons in relation to the processing of personal data is a fundamental right.

The GDPR goes on to describe specific rights of individuals to access, correct, port, and delete data about them, and to object to profiling using that data. None of this is predicated on the individuals’ owning the data. It is based on their rights to the protection of their data.

While it’s common to use phrases such as “your data” or “the consumer’s data” in talking about privacy, this is not meant in the sense of the data being property owned by the individual. It’s simply shorthand for data about the individual.

And what’s wrong with the idea of treating data about individuals as their property? Well, property is a commodity that you can sell or even give away. Privacy is a human right, not a commodity. We have other human rights, for example, rights against discrimination in credit, employment and education based on our race, sex, ethnicity and other personal characteristics. Should we be able to trade away those rights in exchange for money or some kind of exchange? We do not allow that because it wouldn’t be fair and runs contrary to our values. Viewing our personal data as a commodity leads down the slippery slope to considering people as commodities that can be bought and sold. We are not slaves to commercial interests.

Remember that privacy was not always a human right. It is quite recent, actually, having been universally recognized in the tragic aftermath of two world wars. And there are places in the world today where it still does not exist because human rights do not automatically translate into national laws or constitutions.

Privacy has become our most basic right and must be protected. But the only way to protect is by acknowledging what it basically is – a fundamental right, essential to autonomy and the protection of human dignity, serving as the foundation upon which many other human rights are built.

Privacy is not dead. But it is up to everyone to keep that basic human right alive.

What do you think? Do you value your privacy? Do you have concerns about privacy in today’s digital world? Share your thoughts by commenting down below.