The balance between privacy and security in the information age
Authors: Murenzi Romain 
Published: December 2024

This essay examines the balance between the right to “privacy” and the right to “security” for citizens in the information age. At the global level, these two rights appear in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) [23]: (i) ”No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks” (Article 12); (ii) ”Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person” (Article 6). Although UDHR have been adopted nearly all countries in the world, not all of the rights embodied in the declaration have been protected. In particular, the right to “privacy” is frequently violated in the name of “security”. My discussions will be limited to two jurisdictions: the United States (US) and the European Union (EU). The concept of “privacy”, as it has evolved from the 1890 seminal paper: “Right to Privacy”, by Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis (until now at least in Europe and the United States), is a crucial right for an individual. The advent of information communication technologies (ICTs), and the internet, has made it difficult not only to protect this right but also in some circumstances to justify its protection. ICTs, with all their periphery of devices (such as PCs and smart phones) and services (such as email and text messages), have made the collection, storage and delivery through online personal information/data much easier than ever before. “Personal information data” has become a crucial resource for international businesses and trade. Businesses such as air transportation and the credit card industry rely on the flow and processing of “personal information data” between countries or different jurisdictions. “Personal information data”, however, is also a crucial resource for security and law enforcement. This has become particularly crucial, for example, since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Indeed the imperative to protect a country from terrorist attacks has made the collection, storage and processing of “personal information data” a fact of daily life.For an individual, “personal information data” can reveal a great deal about his/her private life. The processing of this information or its use thus has an impact on the individual. The “right to privacy” is under threat locally, nationally and globally. One of the major threats originates from governments with justifiable security and law enforcement concerns, and challenges such as the threats posed by terrorism and the proliferation of indecent material, especially among children. Governments in most democratic countries or regions view security issues largely through the lens of law enforcement. For example, in Europe reference can be made to the “European Convention of Human Rights” [22] which, in Article 8, highlights the protection of “privacy” (albeit with some limitations).This dissertation is organized as follows.In chapter one, I will examine the concept of the “right to privacy”. What is “privacy”? Why is it important and why should we care about it? For the purposes of this dissertation, I will focus on “information privacy” and “data Protection”.In chapter two, I will examine how this right is protected in the EU and will discuss the balance between privacy and security. I will look at the EU Directive on Data Protection [20] and the proposed new Directive on data protection [21]. In chapter three, I will discuss privacy protection in the US and the balance between privacy protection and security. For the US, there is no comprehensive data protection legal framework such as the EU Data Protection Directive. Privacy rights are protected under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and several laws covering “sectors of the information economy” under federal statutory law [14, page 34-36, 18]. In Chapter four, I will conclude the discussion on the the balance between “privacy” and “security” with a brief comparison of the two jurisdictions.