Country Foundations

Right to privacy

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 12. Not present in the US Constitution.

Note on this measure. US privacy is judicially inferred (4th/14th Amendments), not textual, so CCP codes it 2. V-Dem's private civil liberties index is a broad proxy, not a privacy measure per se.

Constitutions declaring it
140 / 158
US declares it
0%
US practices it
93%

Does declaring it change anything?

Distribution of practiced scores, split by whether the constitution declares the right. If the two distributions look alike, the words on the page are not doing much work on their own.

Constitutions that declare it (140)
0100
Constitutions that are silent (18)
0100

Mean practiced score: 71% where declared, versus 72% where silent.

What the text actually says

Passages tagged with this topic, from the Constitute Project.

United States
Amendment IV

Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

South Africa
14. Privacy

14. Privacy Everyone has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have- their person or home searched; their property searched; their possessions seized; or the privacy of their communications infringed.

Country by country

CountryDeclaredPracticed
Albania100%94%
Algeria100%47%
Angola100%61%
Argentina100%94%
Armenia100%87%
Azerbaijan100%47%
Bahrain100%38%
Bangladesh100%67%
Barbados100%94%
Belarus100%45%
Belgium100%97%
Benin100%94%
Bhutan100%67%
Bolivia100%86%
Bosnia and Herzegovina100%86%
Botswana100%83%
Brazil100%89%
Bulgaria100%94%
Burma/Myanmar100%14%
Cambodia100%45%
Cameroon100%74%
Cape Verde100%94%
Central African Republic100%45%
Chad100%53%
Chile100%96%
China100%12%
Colombia100%86%
Comoros100%56%
Costa Rica100%94%
Croatia100%95%
Cuba100%34%
Cyprus100%86%
Democratic Republic of the Congo100%39%
Djibouti100%40%
Dominican Republic100%89%
Ecuador100%87%
Egypt100%35%
El Salvador100%57%
Equatorial Guinea100%28%
Eritrea100%1%
Estonia100%98%
Eswatini100%40%
Ethiopia100%39%
Fiji100%71%
Finland100%96%
Gabon100%85%
Georgia100%91%
Ghana100%93%
Greece100%93%
Guatemala100%76%
Guinea100%33%
Guinea-Bissau100%86%
Guyana100%83%
Haiti100%70%
Honduras100%90%
Hungary100%93%
Iceland100%98%
Iran100%31%
Iraq100%61%
Israel100%83%