Roughly speaking, the right to be left alone. The law on privacy is vague and largely judge-made in both the USA and the UK. It is complicated by cases on trade secrets and has been overtaken by the computer-related version of privacy, data protection. See data protection legislation.

With regard to protection against unauthorized reading of computer data, i.e. to the privacy of data, there are two concepts.

1. 1. Protection of data about an individual or corporate entity. Where data can be determined to refer to a specific person, or in some cases to a specific organization, there may exist a legal right to limit access to that data and, in many cases, associated rights to guarantee accuracy and completeness. This form of privacy exists only for data about an identifiable individual, and exists to protect the rights of the individual to whom the data refers. See data protection legislation.

2. 2. Protection of data owned by an individual or corporate entity. Where data is deemed to be in some sense the property of someone (or some group) there may exist a right to limit access to that data. This form of privacy exists for data belonging to someone, and exists to protect the rights of the owner of the data. See trade secrets. See also integrity, security.