privat-, priv- +

(Latin: individual; not in public life; apart from the State; belonging to an individual)

consumer privacy
1. Laws and regulations that seek to protect an individual from loss of privacy due to failures or limitations of corporate customer privacy measures.
2. Consumer privacy, also known as customer privacy, involves the handling and protection of sensitive personal information that individuals provide in the course of everyday business transactions.

This involves the exchange or use of data electronically or by any other means, including telephone, fax, written correspondence, and even direct word of mouth.

Gradually, customer privacy measures alone have proven to be insufficient to deal with the many hazards of corporate data sharing, corporate mergers, employee turnover, theft of hard drives, or other data-carrying hardware from job locations.

With the advent and evolution of the internet and other electronic methods of mass communications, consumer privacy has become a major issue.

Personal information, when misused or inadequately protected, can result in identity theft, financial fraud, and other problems that collectively cost people around the world, businesses, and governments great financial losses each year.

deprivable (adjective), more deprivable, most deprivable
1. Susceptible of something being withheld: Since Mr. and Mrs. Poor couldn't pay their bills, the electricity was deprivable and they were denied the use of it.
2. Liable to be deposed: In the story Mary was reading, the position of the king was deprivable and he was ousted and put to death.
deprivation
1. The state of being without or denied something, especially of being without adequate food, water, and/or shelter.
2. The act of taking something away from someone or preventing anyone from having something.
3. An act of depriving someone of food or money or rights.
4. The disadvantage that results from losing something.
5. In medicine, the loss or absence of body parts, organs, powers, or anything that is needed.
deprive (verb), deprives; deprived; depriving
1. To take away possessions from someone.
2. To prevent somebody from having something.
3. To remove or to withhold something from the enjoyment or possession of a person or people.
4. Etymology: From Middle Latin deprivare, from Latin de-, "entirely" + privare, "to release from, to rob".
depriver
Anyone, or anything, that removes or withholds something from the enjoyment or possession of a person or thing.
Fures privatorum in nervo ataque in compentibus aetatem agunt; fures publici in auro ataque in purpura.
Those who steal from private individuals spend their lives in stocks and chains; those who steal from the pubic treasure go dressed in gold and purple.
—Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149.B.C.)
invasion of privacy
1. The wrongful intrusion by individuals or the government into private affairs with which the public has no concern.
2. An encroachment upon the right to be left alone or to be free from publicity.
privacy (s) (noun), privacies (pl)
1. Seclusion or isolation from the view of, or from contact with, others: Jane wanted her sister to stay out of her bedroom so that she could have her privacy.
2. The freedom from unwished for or undue disturbance in one's life: Since the Lawson family lived in a little village where everyone knew everyone else, it was difficult to protect their privacy from the other people living there.

Some people think there should be laws to limit the magazines' or newspapers' liberty to intrude into the privacy of the lives of individuals.

private
1. Secluded from the sight, presence, or intrusion of others.
2. Of or limited to one person; not available for public use, control, or participation.
3. Designed or intended for one's exclusive use.
4. Of or confined to the individual; personal; such as, a private joke; private opinions.
5. Undertaken on an individual basis; such as, private studies or private research.
6. Referring to, relating to, or receiving special hospital services and privileges; such as, a private patient.
7. Not available for public use, control, or participation.
8. Belonging to a particular person or people, as opposed to the public or the government.
9. Relating to, or derived from non-government sources; such as, private funding.
10. Conducted and supported primarily by individuals or groups not affiliated with any governmental agencies or corporations; as, a private college; a private sanatorium.
11. Not for public knowledge or disclosure; secret.
12. Etymology: Latin privus meant "single, individual".

From this element, the verb privare was derived and it provided the source of English deprive and privation.

This originally meant "make solitary, isolate", and although it later moved on metaphorically to "bereave, deprive", its earliest sense was preserved in the adjective formed from its past participle privatus.

This denoted "belonging to the individual alone"; therefore, "not belonging or related to the state (government)". English acquired the word twice: first, via Old French, as the now almost archaic privy, and later, directly from Latin, as private.

"Privilege" came via Old French privilege from Latin privilegium, a compound formed from privus and lex, "law" (source of English legal) which etymologically meant "law affecting an individual".

—Based on information from
Dictionary of Word Origins by John Ayto;
Arcade Publishing; New York; 1990; pages 412-413.
private banking
Beyond just providing credit or managing investments, private banking addresses a person's entire financial situation.

Services include everything from protecting and growing someone's assets in the present, to planning retirement and passing wealth on to future generations.

private bill
A legislative bill presented in Parliament or Congress that affects only an individual person, corporation, or part of the nation.
private brand
A brand name used by a retailer for selling goods under its own name.
private sector
The part of a free market economy that is made up of companies and organizations that are not owned or controlled by a government.
privateer
1. A ship privately owned and crewed but authorized by a government during wartime to attack and capture enemy vessels.
2. The commander or one of the crew of such a ship.
3. Etymology: originally "a private man of war" (1646), from private, probably modeled on volunteer and buccaneer (someone who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without having a commission from any sovereign nation).
privately
1. Kept private or confined to those intimately concerned: "It was discussed privately between the two couples".
2. Something done by a private person or interest.
3. Intended for or restricted to the use of a particular person, group, or class.

Cross references of word families related to: "individual, personal": idio-; pecu-.