The right to privacy is broad, including a general right to privacy, but also to specific rights such as to not have your home searched or communications intruded on etc. This right is an important right to consider in balancing the right ‘to know', or the right to have access to information. We therefore have a ‘personal realm' which the law seeks to protect from invasion. Because privacy is so closely linked to the concept of human dignity, juristic persons (like companies) do not have as extensive right to privacy as people. This has been important as a concept in a number of Constitutional Court cases relating to search and seizure powers, and warrants cases, including Zuma v The National Director of Public Prosecutions.
Everyone has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have
1. their person or home searched;
2. their property searched;
3. their possessions seized; or
4. the privacy of their communications infringed.