Legal Protection of Privacy and the Social Reality of Disability

This paper will discuss legal protections for privacy in relation to the social reality of disability. Legal rights to privacy are of key importance to people with disabilities both as a safeguard of human dignity and autonomy, and as a means to avoid the discrimination that may occur when a person's disability is known to potential employers or others. At the same time, people with disabilities frequently must waive privacy protections to obtain needed accommodations. They may also choose to "come out" as persons with disabilities in order assert their identity and to be part of the community of disabled individuals. This paper will consider the paradox of privacy rights for people with disabilities, critically examining national legal regimes in North America and the privacy article of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) (Article 22).