The Jewish Law of Privacy in the News
From an article on privacy in a Norwegian computer magazine,
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.
In m. Baba Batra 3:7 we read the following,
“A person should not open his windows into the courtyard of which he is one of the jointholders. [If] he purchased a house in another courtyard [which adjoins the one in which he is living], he may not make an opening into the courtyard of which he is one of the jointholders. [If] he built an upper story on his house, he should not make an opening for it into a courtyard of which he is one of the jointholders. But if he wanted, he may build a [new] room inside of his house, or he builds an upper story on top of his house, and he makes an opening for it into his house. One should not open up in a courtyard of which he is one of the jointholders a doorway opposite the doorway [of another resident], or a window opposite [another’s] window. [If] it was small, he should not enlarge it. [If it was] a single one, he should not make it into two. But he may open into the public domain a doorway opposite [another’s] doorway [in the public domain], or a window opposite [another’s] window [in the public domain]. If it was small, he may enlarge it. If it was a single one, he may make it into two.”
I once taught a class in which we covered some of these topics and here is the syllabus.