Privacy as human flourishing: Could a shift towards virtue ethics strengthen privacy protection in the age of Big Data?

Privacy is commonly seen as an instrumental value in relation to negative freedom, human dignity and personal autonomy. Article 8 ECHR, protecting the right to privacy, was originally coined as a doctrine protecting the negative freedom of citizens in vertical relations, that is between citizen and state. Over the years, the Court has extended privacy protection to horizontal relations and has gradually accepted that individual autonomy is an equally important value underlying the right to privacy. However, in most of the recent cases regarding Article 8 ECHR, the Court goes beyond the protection of negative freedom and individual autonomy and instead focuses self-expression, personal development and human flourishing. Accepting this virtue ethical notion, in addition to the traditional Kantian focus on individual autonomy and human dignity, as a core value of Article 8 ECHR may prove vital for the protection of privacy in the age of Big Data.

Privacy in the Post-NSA Era: Time for a Fundamental Revision?

Big Brother Watch and others have filed a complaint against the United Kingdom under the European Convention on Human Rights about a violation of Article 8, the right to privacy. It regards the NSA affair and UK-based surveillance activities operated by secret services. The question is whether it will be declared admissible and, if so, whether the European Court of Human Rights will find a violation. This article discusses three possible challenges for these types of complaints and analyses whether the current privacy paradigm is still adequate in view of the development known as Big Data.