Privacy Rights/Conflicts with other Rights/Dependants
Are there other specific rights that are critical to the exercise of this right? Can you identify specific examples of this?
“Privacy claims began gradually to be made independently of the trespass rules essential to property rights” (Heffernan, 2016, 102). The connection between these rights was recognized early on by Hixon (“the right to privacy…carried at least an implied right of property”) from Warren & Brandeis’s 1890 writing and by New York Court of Appeals judge John C. Grey (Hixon, 1987, 39). These rights are protected and exercised jointly in many constitutions and states, likely as privacy rights’ origins are rooted in property rights (Heffernan, 2016, 113). For instance, in Grenada Article 1(c) of the 1973 constitution protects both privacy and property (Constitute Project, Grenada 1973, reinst. 1991, rev. 1992) . Without the right to privacy, property rights would be lessened as it would only grant the right to ownership and, barring other protections, leave the property vulnerable to searches that may expose private information. When exercised in conjunction with property rights, privacy protections expand. This is explicit in the constitution of Saint Kitts and Nevis, which, in granting privacy rights, also prevents the deprivation of property without compensation (Constitute Project, Saint Kitts and Nevis 1983) .
The right to privacy also convenes with the right to be forgotten in some states. This right is “the right of a past individual to be forgotten by people in the present” (Gadja, 2018, 205). The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in 2014 that the right to privacy granted in Europe extended to past economic troubles and that this lack of privacy that caused the lawsuit was harming his ability to move past these troubles (Gadja, 2018, abstract). This ruling allowed the past troubles to be forgotten. Since this ruling in 2014, the United States courts have also alluded to the right to be forgotten as a sect of privacy rights, despite many believing at the time “this right [would not] cross the Atlantic” because of the First Amendment and others believing this right was present before the conventional right to privacy (Gadja, 2018, 206). While the US Supreme Court has not ruled on this right, lower courts have, as the California Supreme Court did in Briscoe v. Reader’s Digest Association in 1971. Briscoe opined that while the reports of previous crimes were newsworthy, the “identification of the actor in reports of long past crimes usually serve[d] little independent public purpose” other than curiosity given the rehabilitation that had taken place (Briscoe v. Reader’s Digest Association, 1971) . The plaintiff was allowed to have his past forgotten and the press was not allowed to take this right away, in this instance (Gadja, 2018, 212). However, this right is not internationally recognized, as other states such as Brazil have not supported this right (Library of Congress, 2021) .
The right to be forgotten and property combine to create the right to one’s name and likeness which is especially important for those in the public eye (Mills, 2008, 220). It is accepted that people have a right to profit off of their own image, much like they have the right to profit off of their inventions or intellectual property (Mills, 2-008, 217-218). This right became clear in court cases soon after the 1890 publication of the Warren & Brandeis article, beginning with Robertson v. Rochester Folding Box Co. in 1902 (Hixon, 1987, 39). Beyond this, of course, are other sects of privacy law that remain pivotal in the protection of privacy rights as it is known today.
References
Briscoe v. Reader’s Digest Association, Inc, 4 Cal. 3d 529 (CA Sup. Ct. 1971). https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/4/529.html
Constitute Project. (2021). Grenada 1973, reinstated 1991, revised 1992. https://constituteproject.org/constitution/Grenada_1992?lang=en
Constitute Project. (2021). Saint Kitts and Nevis 1983. https://constituteproject.org/constitution/St_Kitts_and_Nevis_1983?lang=en
Gadja, A. (2018). Privacy, press, and the right to be forgotten in the United States. Washington Law Review 93(1), 201-264. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3144077
Heffernan, W.C. (2016). Privacy and the American Constitution: New rights through interpretation of an old text. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hixon, R.F. (1987). Privacy in a public society: Human rights in conflict. Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress. (2021, Mar. 15). Brazil: Federal supreme court decides right to be forgotten is not supported by constitution. https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2021-03-15/brazil-federal-supreme-court-decides-right-to-be-forgotten-is-not-supported-by-constitution/
U.S. Constitution. (1787). https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript