Surveillance and privacy in North American public spaces

In this chapter, we provide a high-level overview of legal protections for privacy in public space in the three largest North American jurisdictions (the United States, Canada, and Mexico), focusing on the legal regulation of state surveillance. We examine how the law in each country regulates aspects of state surveillance. Although there are differences in how the countries regulate surveillance and privacy in public, especially between the civil law traditions of Mexico and the common law traditions of Canada and the United States, we find that individuals do not necessarily have strong rights to privacy while they are in public places and in plain view of others in any of the three countries. In both Canada and the United States, courts have held that individuals essentially waive (or abandon) their legitimate expectations of privacy vis-à-vis public authorities whenever they enter public spaces. In Mexico, data protection law may provide some protection from surveillance (or at least certain disproportionate further uses and processing of personal data captured in public spaces), but it is not yet clear how strong this protection will be. However, in each of the three countries, courts have seemingly laid the groundwork for a more robust recognition of a right to privacy from state surveillance in public space, though it is still unclear what shape this protection might take or whether it will actually come to fruition.