Modern technology and challenges to protection of the right to privacy

Abstract

The right to privacy is a fundamental human right and can be categorized as a first generation human right. However, it is one of the most controversial human rights due to the fact that it is not properly defined. The development of technology has changed our understanding of privacy and shifted the boundary between private and public, which has resulted in confusion related to the very meaning of privacy and made us question to what extent we should protect it anyway. Security issues continuously undermine the protection of privacy by imposing the need for more surveillance and control. Instead of being considered as a natural right, the right to privacy is constantly being contested. In this paper it is analyzed how new technologies altered our understanding of privacy and blurred the line between private and public spaces, imposing many challenges to protection of the right to privacy. I argue that these challenges are caused by the lack of definition of privacy and propose that we should rethink the concept itself in order to create a new operative definition which would enable better protection of this fundamental human right which is one of the most important pillars of modern democratic society and protects individuals from despotic controlling powers.