What is Privacy? The History and Definition of Privacy

The protection of privacy cannot be separated from technological development: nowadays, due to the development of science and technology, the possibility to intrude into someone’s privacy has increased. The law has to react to these changes, ensuring the legal protection of privacy. However, in order to ensure this protection, first of all it is necessary to determine the subject of this protection: privacy. Privacy itself is as old as mankind, however, it was not always a legally protected right. What is considered to be private and what is legally protected as private can differ. One of the most important issues concerning legal privacy protection is that according to several privacy scholars and the European Court of Human Rights it is not possible to give an exhaustive legal definition of the subject of privacy protection. The importance of privacy can be related to the fact that privacy has a very close connection with human dignity, freedom and independence of the individual, and it is more and more challenged in the age of the rapid technological development of the information society. The aim of the study is to present the historical development of privacy in order to better understand the concept of privacy and to find a solution to how privacy can be effectively protected in the information society. First, I am going to discuss the short history of privacy, then its already existing definitions, then the way international especially European legal regulations regulate the protection of private life, and finally I am going to outline the current challenges posed by the information society. As a result of my study, I will make some recommendations about how the existing regulations should protect privacy nowadays.