Privacy Privacy in U.S. law, an amalgam of principles embodied in the federal Constitution or recognized by courts or lawmaking bodies concerning what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis described in 1890 as "the right to be left alone." The right of privacy is a legal concept in both the law of torts and U.S. constitutional law. The tort concept is of 19th-century origin. Subject to limitations of public policy, it asserts a right of persons to recover damages or obtain injunctive relief for unjustifiable invasions of privacy prompted by motives of gain, curiosity, or malice. In torts law, privacy is a right not to be disturbed emotionally by conduct designed to subject th