Home Community Insights Nobody has the right to snap, record or video you – Section 37 of Nigerian Constitution

Nobody has the right to snap, record or video you – Section 37 of Nigerian Constitution

Nobody has the right to snap, record or video you – Section 37 of Nigerian Constitution

Have you fallen into a situation where you were snapped, voice recorded, or video recorded and those contents made it to social media without your permission or consent and you wished that it never happened? Then this piece is for you. 

Nobody has the right to do that; everyone is absolutely banned from snapping you, recording you or video you without your consent. 

The right to privacy of individuals as provided in the Constitution postulates that citizens have the fundamental right to their private lives. This provision is all-encompassing, covering the spectrum of the snapping, video recording, or voice recording of an individual.

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Nobody has the right to snap, video, or voice record you (especially in a private place) without asking for your express consent or permission first; if anybody does that, that person will be in breach of your fundamental human right; your right to privacy and you can take that person to court to seek redress.

Section 37 of the Constitution provides thus; The privacy of citizens, their homes, correspondence, telephone conversations, and telegraphic communications is hereby guaranteed and protected. 

This fundamental human right covers the right of an individual to enjoy a peaceful and private life. Everyone is prohibited from breaching this right. Nobody has the right to search through your house, search through your phones, search through your cars or search through your properties, etc without your permission, so also everyone is prohibited from snapping you, recording you, or videoing you at any moment without you permitting that person.

If at any point you feel that this right has been breached or is about to be breached you are to approach the court to seek redress as this is the provision of S. 46(1)of the Constitution and it provides thus; Any person who alleges that any of the provisions of this Chapter has been, is being or likely to be contravened in any State in relation to him may apply to a High Court in that State for redress.

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4 THOUGHTS ON Nobody has the right to snap, record or video you – Section 37 of Nigerian Constitution

  1. Thank you. Constitutionally, it’s very clear just like you demonstrated in the mentioned section of the constitution however, the problem is that we’re yet to even have clear judicial precedent on this issue, to understand the perspective of the court, even after cases like this has been going for years now

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