The right to privacy while leading a community life is an inseparably intertwined fundamental human right of an individual human being. It makes the democratic basement of a civilized society. In theory, this right has been duly honoured and upheld in the constitutions of almost all the states across the globe. More significantly, most of the constitutions categorically assert to safeguard and ensure this sacred right in any situation barring only the contexts of state security and sovereignty. But this core human right has not been established and recognized universally overnight. Historically, this fundamental human right has traced back its origin in French declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens, 1789, American declaration of Independence in1776 and Bill of Rights in the US constitution in 1791. Unfortunately, this basic human right is being grossly violated in varying degrees in all categories of states especially the developing and the underprivileged ones all over the world.
The private lives of the citizens of these countries are being exposed and hacked at random in a barbarous fashion either by the direct sponsorship of the state machinery or the agencies - public or the private, or both - entrusted with preserving the secrecy and confidentiality pertaining to the information of privacies and private lives of the honourable citizens of the state. Even worse and more horrible, in most cases the state and the agencies concerned are misapplying the Privacy Act. using the brand label of state security and the much talked of phrase of the greater interest of the state. Before going deep into the point at issue, I would like to define the terms - privacy and private life. As per the dictionary meaning, privacy refers to a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by others. In a word, it is a state having a total freedom from public attention. Likewise, private life denotes personal relations and interests beyond the periphery of professional or public life. We very often notice innumerable incidents of brazen transgression and invasion of private lives of the eminent citizens just out of political malice or other evil intentions. For instance, when these people are at the helm of political affairs, everything is alright.
But as soon as they are displaced from power, series of scandalous episodes of their private lives happen to become the center-piece of public talks. But when these honourable people are no longer the part of the political power, it is the holy responsibility of the state and the concerned institutions to protect and preserve securely the privacies and private lives of the persons concerned. In practice, we see a totally reverse scenario particularly in Bangladesh. By any standard definition of a civilized and welfare-oriented state, this type of ugly hacking and random intrusion and encroachment on citizens’ privacies is too far from matching the benchmark of a civilized, democratic society. Regarding the incidence of intrusion into private lives and privacies, Bangladesh is, indeed, a glaring case in point here.
The article 39 of the constitution of Bangladesh incorporates and addresses the issue of preserving the private lives of the citizens. Though not spelt out in exact term, the right to privacy has been implicitly integrated or implied into the right to freedom of expression and the freedom of conscience. That is, if a person happens to enjoy the freedom of conscience, he/she automatically enjoys the freedom to lead his/her own life in his/her own way unless and until it infringes the rights of others. The undesirable intrusion and interference of a third party in between cannot be tolerated on any grounds. But to our utter dismay, leaking out of             both information and photographs or video footages on the part of an aggrieved or jealous  party has become a rampant practice as well as culture in reality in Bangladesh. It is an absolute freedom of a person’s conscience who he/she will enter into a relationship with. In the similar fashion, the person concerned reserves every right to break up if or when he/she deems it necessary. The involved any party, in no way, can be forced, coerced, intimidated or blackmailed to stay within the relationship which the concerned counterpart does no longer desire for. But what happens in practice?
If we cast a look at the social networking media, we see uncountable gigabytes of obscene video footages regarding the intimacies and privacies of many honourable citizens of the state. I simply wonder whether the networking authority has any moral scruples or follow any code of conduct. Even worse, honourable subscribers are cordially encouraged and implored to watch these distasteful and disgusting videos. God knows how this bizarre type of tastes and preferences dominate one of the most popular social media like Facebook. Facebook is most likely the social media where people of all age-groups, professions, social standing and strata visit most frequently. Specially, the adolescents and the youngsters madly pursue the pages of this popular website. It has been found by a survey that more than 75% post is nothing but the aggressive invasions of privacies and private life.
I would like to ask the conscience of each and every citizen of Bangladesh why after the break-up of relations photographs and video footages usually taken clandestinely during relationship be published in social media. I firmly believe that no sane human being can support this obnoxious practice. By any standard moral or ethical values, this type of leakage is, no doubt, a punishable crime and the offenders have to be brought to book immediately. Most alarmingly, youngsters and the adolescents are very impressionable. What they see around them they pick them up quickly and imitate them. Thus Facebook, in its turn, therefore incites the raw emotions of the young generation and virtually encouraging them to the nefarious practice of secret video-taping. Isn’t Facebook primarily meant in finding both new and old friends and to develop friendship anew. In a word, we want to see Facebook in its pristine purity in the true sense of its avowed motto.
Perhaps, the greatest invasions on privacies and private life come from mobile phone operators. Our privacies have simply become just playthings in the hands of the operators.
They intrude into our privacies every now and then by opening the floodgate of a torrent of so-called offer messages. It has been roughly estimated by a recent survey conducted by a private firm that mobile phone operators enter into our sets at their own sweet will in every ten to fifteen minutes by releasing a new message into our cell-phone sets. This revelation is undoubtedly horrifying that manifestly shows the grim picture as to how the mobile phone operators are ransacking and molesting our privacies and our private lives. Obviously, a new message is, of course, a matter of concern for the mobile phone carrier and therefore leaves a sort of psychological stress on the subscribers.
More alarmingly, these meaningless commercial messages rush into our phones when we are in our inmost privacies. In addition, there is still another glaring nuisance—the incessant flow of commercial add. Being caught in the dilemma of two-prong attacks, we are just panting and gasping all the time. We now want a safe way out of this suffocating predicament. We are strongly against the increasing commercialization of the operators’ attitude. This will be of great help for all of us concerned if this write-up works as an eye-opener for all parties concerned. We strongly believe that the concerned parties will come forward with a reform package as soon as possible and we will enjoy our fundamental right to privacies and private life without disturbance and nuisance.  

The writer is Assistant Professor of English, Bogra Cantonment Public School & College.