Privacy and freedom of information

It’s late at night. Or you’re just settling down for dinner. The phone beeps. A new message. Could it be the boss with a raise? Or that cute guy you gave your number to the other night? Nope. Maxis/ Digi/ is having some special promotion. Delete and groan.

This month, around 50 NGOs and over 230 individuals signed a memorandum calling for an end to moral policing, the authorities’ intrusion into our bedrooms and private lives. There is a private sphere and a public sphere. The police have a place in one, but not in the other.

The issue of privacy is not just about what happens in our bedrooms, but the right to privacy of our telephone numbers, our health records right down to a criminal record.

The issues of privacy and freedom of information are strongly interlinked. A common concern about freedom of information legislation is that ‘anyone will be able to find out anything about me’. This, however, can happen right now – there is nothing to prevent the government or private companies selling personal information to marketing companies, or anyone else.

With Freedom of Information it is necessary to provide guarantees to privacy of information on individuals. Unfortunately at the moment we have the worst of both worlds.

Privacy can be protected by a Data Protection Act or its equivalent. This would prevent companies or authorities from selling your personal details without your permission. Or even using it for themselves without your permission. It can even mean that they can’t even collect the details without your permission – it remains a mystery to me why Telekom requires to know whether I have a fridge to give me a phone line. Or why Popular Book Stores need to know my race before I can get a discount card. And one of the reasons I cancelled my Citibank account was because I kept receiving calls from insurance companies who addressed me as a Citibank customer.

The aim of the Data Protection Act in the UK, for example, is to balance the rights of individuals to privacy and the rights of those who want to collect information within the limits of the law. You have the right to know who knows what about you. So if someone has your phone tapped, and has recorded information about you, they have to tell you. Think about the nightmares this would give Special Branch officers!

Then, if you want them to get rid of the info they’ve collected, they have to. (SB officer turns green).

Oh, and you have the right to stop people from using information against you (SB officer files papers to migrate to Kazakhstan!). You have the right to compensation if information is misused.

And, best of all, you have the right NOT to have your information sold to people for the purpose of direct marketing.