2. This broad definition of private life is reflected in human rights case law.
Respect for private life encompasses more broadly the right:
To be oneself
To live as oneself
To keep to oneself
3. Privacy is also essential to maintaining a functioning community. For example,
families need privacy to function, as do friends, workplaces, and even political
parties. Privacy allows groups to form and function without undue interference.
The public and private spheres necessarily interact and they are not mutually
exclusive. Almost everyone must carry on their life partly in public.
4. What is clear is that, as a matter of human rights law, the concept of private life
is made up of concentric rings. The inner core of privacy rights is that notion of
privacy which is essential and elemental for the individual to exist as who they
are. However, the notion of privacy then broadens to include, amongst other
things, personal and social relationships.
5. Included, therefore, within the idea of private life are personal freedoms,
personal autonomy, personal integrity and personal relations. These ideas form
part of a broader notion of the State’s limited role within the private sphere
where individual development is concerned. That wider notion of privacy
includes more straightforward ideas such as State control of individuals within
society, regulation of private conduct and surveillance.
6. States have obligations not only to refrain from interference in the right to
privacy but also to protect against acts by private individuals or entities.795 This
positive obligation will involve putting in place a legal framework to prosecute
crimes that is effectively enforced and results in the proper protection of
victims.796
7. The concept of the ‘family’ in the ICCPR has been held by the Human Rights
Committee to include that as understood in the State concerned.797 The term
‘home’ is held ‘to indicate the place where a person resides or carries out his
usual occupation’.798 Private life will also exist in the workplace.799
8. Any interference in an individual’s right to privacy must be prescribed by law, in
accordance with the aims of the particular treaty and reasonable in the
circumstances.800 Furthermore, it must be necessary in a democratic society,
795
Human Rights Committee, General Comment No.16 HRI/GEN/1/Rev.6 at 142 (2003), para 1.
European Court, X and Y v Netherlands, 26 March 1985.
796
European Court, A v Croatia, 14 January 2011.
797
Human Rights Committee, General Comment No.16 HRI/GEN/1/Rev.6 at 142 (2003), para 5.
798
Ibid.
799
European Court, Halford v UK, 25 June 1997; Roeman and Schmit v Luxembourg, 25 May 2003.
800
Human Rights Committee, General Comment No.16 HRI/GEN/1/Rev.6 at 142 (2003), paras 3-4.
European Court, Keegan v UK, 18 October 2006.
130
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