The right to privacy may extend only to the point where it does not restrict someone else’s right to freedom of expression or right to information. The scope of the right to privacy is (a) similarly restricted by the general interest in preventing crime or in promoting public health. However, when we move away from the property-based notion of a right (where the right to privacy would protect, for example, images and personality), to modern notions of private and family life, we find it (b) easier to establish the limits of the right. This is, of course, the strength of the notion of privacy, in that it can adapt to meet changing expectations and technological advances.
In sum, what is privacy today? The concept includes a claim that we should be unobserved, and that certain information and images about us should not be (c) circulated without our permission. Why did these privacy claims arise? They arose because powerful people took offence at such observation. Furthermore, privacy incorporated the need to protect the family, home, and correspondence from arbitrary (d) interference and, in addition, there has been a determination to protect honour and reputation. How is privacy protected? Historically, privacy was protected by restricting circulation of the damaging material. But if the concept of privacy first became interesting legally as a response to reproductions of images through photography and newspapers, more recent technological advances, such as data storage, digital images, and the Internet, (e) pose new threats to privacy. The right to privacy is now being reinterpreted to meet those challenges.
* arbitrary: 임의의