UN: Online Privacy Now Considered a Human Right

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1. United Nations Names Online Privacy That You Probably Don’t Have As A Universal Human Right

http://consumerist.com/2014/01/17/united-nations-names-online-privacy-that-you-probably-dont-have-as-a-universal-human-right/

United Nations Names Online Privacy That You Probably Don’t Have As A Universal Human Right
By Kate Cox January 17, 2014

Online privacy: it’s a contentious ground between corporations and consumers, a troubled 21st century frontier of expectations, and, apparently, a universal human right.

As we read via Broadband DSL Reports, the United Nations recently adopted a resolution calling out online privacy as a universal human right. The resolution (PDF) expands the UN’s existing stance on privacy to include the digital realm.

The current iteration of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights enumerates 29 general areas of universal rights. The list not only includes topics like freedoms of thought and expression, but also the rights to employment and to education, condemnations of slavery and torture, and the right to privacy, which is explicitly recognized in Article 12.

Article 12 begins, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence,” and affirms the right to the protection of the law from any such interference.

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