This report reviews the state of privacy in over fifty countries around the world. It outlines the constitutional and legal conditions of privacy protection, and summarizes important issues and events relating to privacy and surveillance. Among the key findings:

Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized in all major international treaties and agreements on human rights. Nearly every country in the world recognizes privacy as a fundamental human right in its constitution, either explicitly or implicitly. The most recently drafted constitutions include specific rights to access and control one’s personal information.

Nearly all industrialized countries support comprehensive privacy and data protection acts and nearly fifty countries and jurisdictions have, or are in the process of, enacting such laws. In the past year, over a dozen countries have enacted new laws or updated previous acts. Countries are adopting these laws in many cases to address past governmental abuses, to promote electronic commerce, or to ensure compatibility with international standards developed by the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

New technologies are increasingly eroding privacy rights. The technologies frequently are moving ahead of the legal protections. These include video surveillance cameras, identity cards and genetic databases.

Surveillance authority is regularly abused, even in many of the most democratic countries. The main targets are political opponents, journalists, and human rights activists. The U.S. government is leading efforts to relax legal and technical barriers to electronic surveillance, especially for Internet and satellite communications.

There is an increased right of access to public records. Nearly 40 countries now provide a legal right of access to government records through Freedom of Information Acts or Codes of Access.