Privacy and faith

Cultural paradigms may not be the only lenses through which employees interpret and connect with corporate privacy policies. Religious beliefs may also play a role.

Take the Book of Genesis, for example, which Judaism, Christianity and Islam draw from. Says Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness&'" Because man is an ensouled creation of the Almighty to these 3 billion adherents, he carries a special dignity that must be respected by businesses and governments.

This dignitary approach to privacy is the foundation of Article 12 of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation."

Even though religious practice has waned in Europe since 1970, this same dignitary-based view of privacy is arguably the principal influence in the EU's landmark 1995 Directive on Data Protection. But unless Western corporations become more comfortable speaking the language of faith -- less fearful of giving offense -- their appeals to toe the privacy line may fall on deaf ears.

When you consider the historic attitude toward privacy rights in the Judaic tradition, Israel's position at the forefront of privacy protection is not surprising. In his book The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America, George Washington University professor Jeffrey Rosen writes that hezzek re'iyyah is a concept in Jewish law meaning "the injury caused by seeing."

Quoting the Encyclopedia Talmudit, Rosen says, "Even the smallest intrusion into private space by the unwanted gaze causes damage, because the injury caused by seeing cannot be measured." He explained that Jewish law since the Middle Ages gives you the right to stop a neighbor from building a window that looks into your courtyard, because the uncertainty about whether or not you're being watched may cause you to lead a more restricted life.

To this end, Omer Tene, a member of the Israeli Ministry of Justice Committee for reform of data protection law, says that Israel in 1981 passed the Privacy Protection Act, one of the first data-protection statutes in the world. In 1992, Israel elevated the right to privacy to constitutional status in Section 7 of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

And what about Islam? Among Arab countries, Dubai in 2007 became the first to pass a national data-protection law, and it remains alone in that accomplishment. But one would be mistaken to conclude that Islam is silent on privacy.