The concept of privacy has a far-reaching historical origin that has been evaluated sociologically and anthropologically in extensive discussions. While privacy was considered as an ethical value in some of these discussions, others have approached it as an ethical and legal right that should be protected by society and the law. The right to privacy is founded on the principle of the sacred self, which, in turn, is the principal condition of the inviolability of the individual. The dignity of being an individual, our individual autonomy, and most importantly, our freedom are all defined on the basis of our sacred selves. The integrity of the individual, the protection and development of the individual identity both require the protection of the realm of privacy. On the other hand, privacy, as an innate value, is a necessity for the development of the individual as an ethical and social personality, capable of establishing intimate relationships with others on the basis of love, respect and trust.

When privacy is defined in its most basic sense as the human being’s control over the information about himself or herself, in our daily life the concept might materialize in the acts of seclusion, retreat and avoidance of interaction, as well as in the form of the individual placing limitations on others from accessing him or her, opening up to them in a controlled manner or keeping them outside.

But what does privacy mean to us in the circumstances of quarantine that we are in right now? How does being stranded at home, in our most important sanctuary in ensuring our privacy, changes our perception of privacy? Given the fact that in a relationship, where we can nurture the needs of the other in terms of attention and love, we can only achieve intimacy and affection to the extent that we can maintain the limits of our privacy, how are our thoughts on our family, our lover, togetherness and distance are effected? While physical privacy is a right, defined as an individual’s ability to be in charge of another individuals’ physical access to (touching, seeing, hearing) him or her, what do we feel when all of these are forbidden due to the necessity of social distancing brought about today?

As we are closed in at our homes in compliance with the conditions of social isolation, we are entranced in watching the world through the window of the internet. But what do we think about the world looking back at us from that same window? As the social media and technology became necessities in these times of quarantine, do the online video calls that we are making/are forced to make from our homes involve violations on the boundaries of our privacy?

The endless possibilities of the digimodern era have allowed governments to monitor society and enabled commercial companies to access all our information through our digital footprints. The communication between people carried out through social media, the desire to see/pry into and to be seen has also contributed to the mass surveillance of the system on a voluntary basis. Considering that surveillance is a violation of privacy, it could be said that the boundaries between these two concepts have evaporated, the expression of privacy, which is an abstract and multi-layered concept, has become increasingly difficult, and has been in a state of constant transformation.

At this point that the current pandemic we are experiencing has brought us, all of these technologies are being used to launch new applications that would follow individuals 24 hours a day for the sake of assuming control over the epidemic. This situation brings to mind the question of whether security should outweigh privacy in our fear-ridden world created by a multitude of visible and invisible threats. Which of these two is the antecedent to our principal duty and instinctual imperative – that is, the premise of survival – is it our right to confidentiality, or the requirement of security?

In light of all these questions, in a state of affairs akin to a dystopian fiction, we are reopening the discussions on the concept of privacy. We need to face the facts about which side of the panopticon we are on; are we among those who are watching, or those being watched? Is the house, as Beatriz Colomina has suggested, a camera pointed at nature, and the windows its lenses? Or perhaps, recalling Kafka, one could ask:

“Is the gatekeeper always there?”