ON THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECRECY

Often both words are used interchangeably however in the strictest of sense both words though very much relatable are immensely different.

According to Dictionary.com Privacy is the state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one’s affair or life, a word derived from the Middle English word ‘privace’ while Secrecy is the state of being hidden or concealed from the Middle English word ‘secretee’. The common denominator there is “a state”, quite rightly in certain scenarios one can be used in place of another but in other cases they just cannot be interchanged.

What is private is not necessarily a secret:

As humans we must defecate both fluid and solid, when defecating we do that in an enclosed room or area, we are not just doing it in the public or in the face of another person not because it is a secret but because you require and deserve that privacy. We take shower, use passwords on our online websites (Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.), all these are done not necessarily because they are secrets but for our own privacy. At some point in time we opened an email or a social media page, we were asked to input a password the reason was to protect our privacy after all everyone on the same social media has to input password that overrules the claim of secrecy, secrecy comes in when you are given a specific reset code (should you forget your login detail), these codes are unique and meant only for you that is a secret even your wife/kids do not get to know it.

What is secret is private:

As earlier opined, secret/secrecy is a state of concealment, there are certain scenarios that call for secrecy. A man cheating on his wife is not trying to make that public, he does everything possible to keep the external relationship a secret and private, the cheater and the one he cheats with meets in private places like a hotel, another rented apartment does not matter, as long as they do it somewhere the wife cannot know. This specific example is used because quite unfortunately the word secret is often found in relationship issues, there are other cases where secrets come up, like government, military intelligence, police investigations, patents and certain medical situation or details. A medical report is often a secret as it’s almost impossible for another person to get your medical history without legal documents proving the right to receive the document. Also personal issues about oneself or others can be secrets that should be taken to the grave, like someone once said your relationship issues should be a private affair but the relationship itself should never be a secret.