2. In our legal system the protection of privacy is a
fundamental right and on it are based the ideals of our
country, which is why the interventions aimed at their
protection are increasingly frequent.
What are Human Rights?
Human Rights are the inalienable rights of man, that is,
the rights that must be recognized to every person for the
sole fact of belonging to the human race, regardless of the
origins, affiliations or places where the person himself is.
3. The meaning of privacy, over time, has also evolved in
relation to the technological evolution that has existed since
the times of Warren and Brandeis (late nineteenth century).
In its beginnings in the sphere of private life, it has evolved
extensively in recent decades, going so far as to indicate the
right to control personal data.
Today the right to privacy means the "right to keep secret aspects, behaviors, acts
related to the intimate sphere of the person". This right gives the individual control
over all information and data concerning his or her private life, while providing him or
her with the means to protect this information.
The meaning of privacy
4. The origin of the concept of privacy
The concept develops in Ancient Greece, when, in a series of philosophical treatises, one
begins to write about the "sense of privacy". Aristotle, in his Politics, distinguishes between
Polis, the public sphere of the individual, linked to the activities of the city, and Oikos, the
private sphere, associated with domestic life and the personal sphere is established, distinct
from public and political. According to the ancient Greeks, the involvement of men in public
life was of fundamental importance, however, they recognized to the individual the need for
a proper and reserved sphere, to be understood as a place in which to deal with their needs.
In 1890, two American jurists, Louis Brandeis and
Samuel Warren, published "The Right of Privacy" on the
Harward Law Review, the first legal monograph to recog
nize "the right to let alone", expressing in these words
the desire for an own and inviolable intimacy.
5. In USA
Warren and Brandeis defined the right to privacy as
"the right to be left
alone". Brandeis, the main author
of the article, was inspired by the reading of the work
of the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson,
who proposed loneliness as a criterion and source of
freedom. The logic of the fence is applied: the so-
called ius excludendi alios. In the introduction to
the article we have the statement that the individual
must have full protection of his person and property.
The first three paragraphs of the essay deal with the
right to life and then the "legal value of sensations".
From the fourth paragraph, Warren and Brandeis argue
that the law needs to adapt to recent inventions and
business methods (eg photography and newspapers).
6. As for the Italian Constitution, there is
no specific article that protects the right
to privacy, but this can be derived by way
of interpretation from Articles 2 and 3 of
the Constitution which allow privacy to
be incorporated into the inviolable rights
of man; but also from Articles 13, The
Committee on the Environment, Public
Health and Consumer Protection has
tabled a number of amendments to this
report.
In Italy
