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Right of Privacy and the Law

The right of privacy is the human right to privacy. These rights have form the
basis of various privacy laws and are an element of what is permissible
legally which binds an individual, the government and private institutions
from intimidating any individual or institution or threatening an individual
right to privacy.
These rights have been known to give power to the citizens for the
protection of their rights and also have improved immensely transparency of
government and private bodies or individuals that hold and wield power in
the society.
"The right to privacy is a person's right to be left alone by the
government... the right most valued by civilized men."
- Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
The above statement indicates that the right of privacy is a right that has
been most cherished by all and this right is recognized in International
Human Right Treaties and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
others even thou it was in a broader concept.
Human dignity and autonomy provides a basis as the core values for the
protection of fundamental human rights and privacy under the Nigerian
constitution.
The Human dignity basis seeks to protect the personality of all Nigerian
citizens irrespective of post and position held in the society while the
autonomy basis seeks to protect the independence of all Nigerian citizens
which allows an individual to lead their life without interference from anyone
in the society
Privacy is a legal term that up till date the concept of privacy has proven
difficult to define as it is better described than defined. This has given rise to
so many creditable definitions with the intent of giving an insight into the
concept of privacy.
One such definition is given by an Israelis Law school which define privacy of
rights as an independent right that deserves legal protection in itself
because it is our fundamental right to keep a dominion over all things that
form an integral part of us such as our body, property, thoughts, feelings,
secrets and our identity.

Another definition on privacy is given as The right of the individual to be


protected against intrusion into his personal life or affairs, or those of his
family, by direct physical means or by publication of information.
These privacy rights empower us with the ability to dictate who has accessed
to what part of our domain, the extent of the access given, in what manner
will the information or data be given and at what time it is appropriate to use
whatever parts of our domain that we might have disclosed (Wikileaks, 2002)
The rights as recognized by the Nigerian constitution are captured under the
fundamental rights (Nigerian Constitution, 1999, Chapter 2) and fundamental
objectives and directive principles of state policy (Nigerian Constitution,
1999, Chapter 4)
The fundamental rights of Nigeria citizen are as stated as the Right to life;
Right to dignity of human persons; Right to personal liberty; Right to fair
hearing; Right to private and family life; Right to freedom of thought,
conscience and religion; Right to freedom of expression and the press; Right
to peaceful assembly and association; Right to freedom of movement; Right
to freedom from discrimination; Right to acquire and own immovable
property; Compulsory acquisition of property; Restriction on and derogation
from fundamental human rights; Special jurisdiction of High Court and Legal
aid.
The Nigerian Constitution also recognized the right to privacy as mentioned
in Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as
The privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone
conversations, and telegraphic communications is guaranteed and
protected.
(Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, Article 37)
The current Nigerian constitution does not provide sufficient standards for
the protection of privacy as there is the need for a comprehensive privacy
law to be put in place especially with the advent of digital data, as these
data are collected over the internet, by different governmental agencies and
so on. The amalgamation of these collated data could infringe on human
dignity and independence.
And as a matter of trying to create a standard privacy act, a bill is at the
Nigerian senate and this bill has been criticized as being poorly drafted, not

properly organized, difficult to understand and thereby equally difficult to


implement.
Some of the defects that have been pointed out includes but not limited to
1. Its application as stated is only to private bodies which imply that the
law will not apply to any government institutions. This is a serious
problem as we do not have any detailed personal information law in
Nigeria and it leaves unprotected millions of medical record, identity
records and any other information held by government institutions
2. The bill does not apply to individuals that collect, use or disclose
personal information for personal or domestic purposes. Example of
this is when an individual puts another individual personal information
such as photo or video on social media sites and these information is
later used against the said individual
3. An office of Privacy Commissioner was created to oversee the act, but
is limited to resolving complaints through mediation and conciliation.
The fact that the commissioner cannot take any concrete actions
undermines its' mandate as globally Data Protection Authorities have
the duty to enforce the rights of individuals
Data Protection Law should be created in Nigeria and should take care of the
definition of personal data, the privacy rights, strong definition of data
subjects rights, state clearly that government institutions can also misuse
data thereby constituting a breach of the data protection laws, state clearly
under which conditions personal data can be used without getting approval
from data subject, by stating clearly what should be done in case of privacy
breach , state clearly what methods can mitigate against breach of data
protection laws
Also awareness on rights and privacy should be made available to the
citizens, and it is imperative that before data is released by an individual, the
purpose for which the data is being collected, what the data will not be used
for and what to do when this data is used for other purposes other than is
specified
It is one thing to have laws in places, it's another thing to actually enforce
them and make sure that the appropriate steps are taken to make sure that
these laws are abided

References

http://www.nigerianlawtoday.com/2013/02/redefining-frontiers-of-rightto.html
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/technology/internet/privacy/
privacy-law.html
http://www.nigeria-law.org/ConstitutionOfTheFederalRepublicOfNigeria.htm
Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) [Online] Available from:
http://www.nigeria-law.org/ConstitutionOfTheFederalRepublicOfNigeria.htm
(Accessed: 23 May 2015)

Data protection legislation for Nigeria: the time is near


F F Akinsuyi NESG Economic Indicators Vol. 13 (3) 2007 pp. 31-39

NATIONAL IDENTITY MANAGEMENT COMMISSION ACT, 2007


http://adeadeniyi.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/the-need-for-data-protection-law-innigeria-2/

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