Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights
Open-knowledge reference entry
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence", subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international treaty to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe.
Right
Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
Article 8 is considered to be one of the convention's most open-ended provisions.
Structure
The European Court of Human Rights applies a structured test when reviewing complaints under Article 8. First, the applicant must show that the matter falls within the scope of one of the four protected interests: private life, family life, home or correspondence. Once Article 8 is engaged, the Court considers whether the case involves a negative obligation or a positive obligation. A negative obligation requires the State to refrain from interfering with the right. A positive obligation requires the State to take active steps to secure the right, and this can extend to disputes between private parties.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2257640. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.