Privacy can be defined as a way of drawing the line at how far society can intrude into a person's affairs (Banisar, 2000)[1]. Wikipedia defines it as the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to control the flow of information about themselves.[2] Simply it can be described as one’s right to have a private life, to be left alone and to be able to decide when one’s personal data is collected, used or disclosed. Personal data includes any information that can be used to identify, contact or locate you. It is the violation of an expectation of confidential information disclosed in a private place being unveiled to third parties. The Australian Privacy Charter provides that “privacy is a value which underpins to human dignity and other values such as freedom of association and speech. It is a basic human right and the reasonable expectation of every person.”[3]
In the case of R v/s Dyment, the Supreme Court of Canada tried to understand the term privacy by breaking it into different categories. The three zones of privacy have been defined as those involving territorial or geographical aspects, person related aspects and information related concerns. In this paper, we are mainly concerned with information privacy which relates to confidentiality of information about individuals. Alan Westin defined privacy in this context as ' the claim of individuals, groups or institutions to define for themselves when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated to others'.[4] The main concern summarized here is that employees may be denied the opportunity to define what extent of personal information about them is communicated to their employer.
Surveillance technology is not a new issue. In the past video cameras and wiretaps had left all in fear of personal privacy. What is more feared today is the breakthrough of IT, especially the surveillance technology. Balancing the fear of technology and privacy has long been a concern and a challenge for both businesses and legal authorities. In terms of e-mail privacy, Harris quoted, “What protected us, to an extent, in the past, was a wall of paper... Now electronic communication allows that wall to be penetrated very easily”.[5]
