Privacy

Privacy (프라이버시, 사생활의 비밀/私生活 秘密) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed or unidentified in the public realm. When something is private to a person, it usually means there is something within them that is considered inherently special or personally sensitive.

Key words
privacy, fundamental right, data protection, sensitive data

Constitutional ground
The Constitution provides for the general protection of privacy (Article 17), and specifically for the protection of privacy of home (Article 16) and in communications (Article 18). The Constitution also affirms that freedoms and rights of citizens shall not be neglected on the grounds that they are not

enumerated in the Constitution (Article 37 (1)).

These protections can be abridged in exceptional circumstances: freedoms and rights of citizens may be restricted by the law only when necessary for national security, law and order, or public welfare. Even when such restriction is imposed, essential aspects of the freedom or right shall not be violated (Article 37 (2)). It means that the utmost need to enhance the administrative efficiency cannot justify the infringement upon the privacy of ordinary citizens.

Case law
In 2003, the Constitutional Court made a noteworthy interpretation of these provisions:
 * The right to privacy is a fundamental right which prevents the state from looking into the private life of citizens, and provides for the protection from the state’s intervention or prohibition of free conduct of private living.
 * Concretely, the privacy protection is defined as protecting and maintaining the confidential secrecy of an individual; ensuring the inviolability of one’s own private life; keeping from other’s intervention of such sensitive areas as one’s conscience or sexual life; holding in esteem one’s own personality and emotional life; and preserving one’s mental inner world.

In 2003, there occured nation-wide privacy debates over the National Education Information System (NEIS, 교육행정정보시스템). In July 2005, the Constitutional Court rendered another landmark decision on privacy. See NEIS.

Privacy law
The data protection law is to protect the data subject from inappropriate access to, and abuse or misuse of, its personal information. Personal information is understood to mean the data of a living person comprising sign, character, voice, sound and image,and so on, which may be used solely, or together with other easily combined data, to identify the data subject by means of a name, resident registration number, and so on.

With the advancement of information technology, the scope of such information increasingly expands to include email addresses, credit card numbers, log files, cookies, GPS location data, DNA data, etc. In this connection, individual belief, conscience, medical records, sexual orientation, race, trade union activities and criminal records are regarded as sensitive data.