In the context of public-awareness raising for privacy issues, I wanted to offer two thoughts: one, that it might be helpful in such campaigns to bring out the fact that privacy is an actual universal "human right", that we have a specific world-encompassing document establishing this right, and two, that there are even some budding international mechanisms for individuals to enforce that right.
On the first point, I feel that people might gain appreciation for the fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document drafted by the U.N. (in a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Creation_and_drafting ) and not rejected by any country of the time, makes specific mention of privacy: 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. (at http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml ) This is adopted though reworded in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, one of two key international human rights covenants supporting the Universal Declaration, and ratified by the large majority of countries of the world: Article 17 1. 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. 2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. (at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx ) (Of course, when "lawful" interference should be allowed is and will be a source of endless debate, but the point is that there is an aspiration here for privacy to be a right for all under normal circumstances.) This is not restricted to "data privacy", of course, but especially given its mention of "correspondence", I think this could easily be understood as including privacy of internet communications and data, which is our modern form of correspondence (even if an Internet Bill of Rights per https://webwewant.org/ could make this more explicit). Too often, people are left to thinking that only their country has important values, or only a subset of countries, but this inspired document is one we can all reference and emphasize, as it belongs to all of us, no matter our country of origin. In so doing, it also won't hurt for us to see more tangibly that we're all in this together (just as we feel a higher sense of solidarity when people from different states or provinces in our respective countries speak of our shared national constitution). Yes, each country has its own values (just as each state in our union has its own values), but certain values are, as shown by this document, held as universal and it helps, I think, for this to be drawn out in advocacy campaigns such as Mozilla conducts. But beyond the important arena of appealing to global values and rights, I wanted to suggest Mozilla also consider highlighting that there is even a supplementary protocol (regrettably, an optional one, and one allowing "reservations" though a fairly widely adopted one based on the map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ICCPR-OP1-members.png ) associated with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which allows individuals to make appeals toward violation of their international (civil and political) human rights, including privacy rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Optional_Protocol_to_the_International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights . Beyond these thoughts on privacy (not sure the right forum to suggest this), I also wanted to suggest Mozilla consider doing similarly in its big picture discussions on freedom to use the internet or participate in open source, given the existence of explicit universal human rights pertaining to participation in the cultural life of the community, enjoyment of the arts, sharing in scientific advancement, as well as the protection of the moral and material interests of one's scientific, literary, or artistic productions. _______________________________________________ dev-privacy mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-privacy
