Приватность и тайна: право на контроль над личной информацией

Abstract

The article considers the right for privacy and secrecy as an opportunity to have a life sphere hidden from the government, society and other individuals. The study is based on a holistic approach including logical, hermeneutical and comparative methods. The historical process of the origin of publicness triggered the development of legal guarantees, personal freedom, and political involvement. This was accompanied by the occurrence of the sphere of privacy where an actor is protected from state and public interventions. Whereas the public sphere is associated with openness, transparency, total accessibility, the private sphere is connoted with darkness, opacity, and closedness. The need for privacy and secrecy is determined by the human vulnerability. One of the critical components of privacy is the right of an individual for control his personal information. To protect one’s own private sphere, one puts on a social mask when speaking in public. In an intimate relationship, unlike in a public one, he voluntarily waives protection by allowing those closest to him access to personal information. The restricted private sphere is sometimes a source of apprehension and a desire to penetrate other people’s secrets, both from the totalitarian state, which seeks to suppress and unify the individual, and from curious members of society. For the purpose of retaining the social world, a person in the course of socialisation learns to respect other’s privacy, behaving discreetly and tactfully. The right for privacy and secrecy is related with freedom, dignity, and the autonomy of personality.