Privacy
ability or right of an individual or group to seclude themselves, or information about themselves
Privacy (UK: , US: ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of appropriate use and protection of information. Privacy may also take the form of bodily integrity.
Throughout history, there have been various conceptions of privacy. Most cultures acknowledge the right of individuals to keep aspects of their personal lives out of the public domain. The right to be free from unauthorized invasions of privacy by governments, corporations, or individuals is enshrined in the privacy laws of many countries and, in some instances, their constitutions.
With the rise of technology, the debate regarding privacy has expanded from a bodily sense to include a digital sense. In most countries, the right to digital privacy is considered an extension of the original right to privacy, and many countries have passed acts that further protect digital privacy from both public and private entities.
There are multiple techniques to invade privacy, which may be employed by corporations or governments for profit or political reasons. Conversely, people may employ encryption or anonymity measures to protect their privacy.
“Privacy” enters the record as ability or right of an individual or group to seclude themselves, or information about themselves. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Privacy, ability and right can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Privacy” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Privacy, ability and right provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q188728. The Library of Congress control number is sh85107027. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
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- Expand the search: follow Privacy primary sources, Privacy archive and Privacy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Privacy” 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.