Violating The Sanctity of Private Life
The Sanctity of private life is the belief that all human beings, at any stage of life can enjoy privacy in all aspects of their lives. Stemming from this is also the belief that this right to privacy is one that protects private information from violation or misuse. To enable this, controls and limits are put in place to filter the information available, and the audience it is available too.
This right, is, unfortunately, one of the most violated rights in modern day history, particularly since the proliferation of the internet in our day to day lives, as a result of the increase in daily electronic transactions and the sharing of personal information by individuals, and within public and private entities.
A daily example of such an offense of violation can be seen in the persistent sending of e-mails that include a promotion of goods or services to a particular person, without his permission.
In the past, there was no regulation or protection of people’s data, and such data was commonly traded by marketing and advertising companies, leading to people being flooded with marketing or advertising messages, emails, and even cold calls, causing great inconvenience.
To tackle this nationwide issue, the Egyptian legislator has now classified this harassment as a form of aggression against private life. This, therefore, criminalizes sending emails to a particular person without their consent, as well as trading in people’s personal data with marketing and advertising companies, who then use this information without the consent of the person.
According to Article (25) of the Information Technology Offences Law No.175 of June 2018:
“A term of imprisonment of no less than six months and a fine of no less than fifty thousand Egyptian pounds, and no more than one hundred thousand pounds, or one of the two penalties shall be imposed upon anyone who has consistently sent numerous emails to a particular person without his or her consent, or has given data to a system or website to promote goods or services”
To conclude, The aim of this article is to highlight that Egyptian legislators are taking steps to prevent the misuse of personal data, by imposing the need for consent from the individual whose data is being used. This not only protects the consumer, but also ensures consistency with article 57 of the Constitution which emphasizes that “private life is inviolable and is protected without prejudice.”
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