Information wants to be free. It wants to be freely sought out, expressed, and received. In fact, the United Nations has declared that humans have a right to seek, receive and impart information. While the First Amendment grants us freedom of expression, and the Freedom of Information Act gives us limited access to government data, the right to seek out and receive information is not guaranteed by the Constitution, even when the information in question happens to be your name or Social Security number.

ATT Is the Dark Side

But don’t take my word for it; just call AT&T and ask them questions like, “How do you use my personal information? Who else have you disclosed this information to?” Let me know how they respond.

The right to access information, like so many others outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has not enjoyed universal adoption among UN member states. For example, while Americans are free to express most information, we are not necessarily free to seek out or obtain it. We do not, for example, have access to the FBI Investigative Data Warehouse, which “contains hundreds of millions of records and has been characterized as an ‘Uber-Google’“, even though this information is supposedly covered under the Freedom of Information Act. Nor do we necessarily have access to our personal information records that are used or stored by business organizations such as a “data brokers” or telecommunications companies.

Compare this to the European Union, where all member states must enact laws that protect, among other things, the right of access to personal data (Section V of Directive 95/46/EC). EU citizens have the right to “confirmation as to whether or not data relating to him are being processed and information at least as to the purposes of the processing, the categories of data concerned, and the recipients or categories of recipients to whom the data are disclosed,” as well as “the rectification, erasure or blocking of data the processing of which does not comply with the provisions of this Directive, in particular because of the incomplete or inaccurate nature of the data.” In other words, if you are a business in the EU and you “process” my personal information, I have the right to know how and why you’re using it, as well as who you have disclosed it to–AND I can ask you to fix or even remove my information if it is imcomplete or inaccurate.

Many countries outside the EU, particularly in Asia and South America, have enacted similar laws to facilitate business transactions with countries in the EU, because Directive 95/46/EC also prohibits EU member states from transferring information to countries that do not have adequate data protection laws. The United States does not, and has only been able to conduct transactions with the EU through a Safe Harbor program.

Is Access to Information a Human Right?

Before someone throws their freedom fries at me, let me just say that I truly believe we enjoy a freedom of expression and a level of social mobility that few, if any, EU countries can match. For example, censorship is perfectly legal in Britain, Germany and France. Did you know that neo-nazis in Germany, where it is illegal to display the swastika, often fly Confederate flags? And let’s not forget the countless other countries where freedom of expression is severely limited–North Korea, Zimbabwe, Iran, China–the list is long. There is much we can do as American librarians to promote, proliferate and protect freedom of expression on a global scale.

At the same time, a fair comparison between data privacy and protection laws in our country and abroad shows that there is much we can do to develop and disseminate heightened awareness about other aspects of intellectual freedom, such as the right to access information. But our society often eschews the examples of others–especially Europeans–in deference to “American” ways, and there is no guarantee that the public at large will support data privacy and protection legislation. Still, librarians are in an ideal position to help promote and protect access to information, and it is inspiring to think that we could help promote and protect human rights in the process.