« Protection of personal data on social media : how can the UN regulate practices? »

"If I decide to participate in a social network, I will be crystallized, mired by the information that I have entrusted to the age of 21 years. In ten years, you emerge them. You are drawn because you lose the ability evolving. We have the right, at age 20, to say something stupid, it does not mean that you should report all your life "1. This quote of Senator and former president of the CNIL and the Article 29 Working Party Alex Turk represents well the concerns related to the success that social networks face since early 2000. The need for privacy dates back to very ancient times. Most companies, whether primitive or modern, have developed ways to protect themselves from prying eyes. Even before the technology becomes, the men set them limits, combined with rules, customs and taboos, created a distinction between what is public and privé2. The explicit term "private life" appeared for the first time in an article of judges of the US Supreme Court Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, 18903. They defined it in the right to privacy as the "right to be left alone ".Since the right to privacy has been recognized as the essential human right, and took its place in the international treaties and the constitutions of many states. Article 8, paragraph 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights signed in 1950 between the Member States of the Council of Europe, gives fundamental importance, stating that "everyone has the right to respect for his life private and family, his home and his correspondence "4. For the first time, the right to privacy is recognized as fundamental right of humaine.Cependant person, it is interesting to note that what is meant by "private life" is still not clearly defined. So how to know when this right may be invoked? Privacy is not a fixed concept, and can not be considered independent of a certain context. Thus, according to Daniel Solove, it is impossible to establish a single definition of privée5 life. Rather than trying to conceptualize privacy, we should adopt a pragmatic approach and try to understand it in specific situations, contextual, "my approach differs from traditional acceptances of privacy, which seek to conceptualize the generic terms, as a standard class. In other words, I suggest an approach that conceptualizes privacy from below rather than from above, from particular contexts, rather than from something abstract " . This view would realize the discussions around privacy, and thus establish a more efficace.Lorsqu'on protection policy studies the right to respect for privacy in different contexts, we can see that it advantage is a means rather than an end. Although presented as a fundamental right, it is not that for-itself as the right to privacy must be protected. As the researcher Antoinette Rouvroy wrote in an article Médiapart newspaper, "privacy is not a fundamental right among others, it is the necessary condition for the exercise of other fundamental rights and freedoms." Freedom of opinion, movement and assembly, political freedoms, trade union, or religious, could not be exercised without the right to life privée.Dès then, the concept of respect for private life seems to be that another approach to the same fundamental right, that of individual freedom and respect for humaine.Il person is a prerequisite for a democratic society, in that it is a right inseparable from the notion of freedom. The European Union must work to protect this fundamental right, and harmonize the measures taken to this in the Member States. That is why the right to privacy is now enshrined in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights to Privacy traditionally includes the home, family life and correspondence, as shown in the official texts mentioned above. Within these areas, individuals are free to lead their lives as they wish. In recent decades, the private sphere has gradually integrated personal data, defined by the CNIL as "any information relating to an individual identified or who can be identified, directly or indirectly, by reference to a name, a serial number identification or to one or more of its own "8. These data flows today very easily through computers, during our daily activities: when we go to the bank, to the doctor, that we reserve a plane ticket, and now on social networks . "