The concept of privacy corresponds to the protection of intimate private and family life, guaranteed by Article 26(1) of our Constitution. Most citizens have a general idea of what privacy entails: the ability to delimit a part of one's life where behaviours are freely adopted, protected from interference by public authorities. Transparency, originating from the Anglo-Saxon concept of 'open file', applies to administrative procedures where public officials must justify their decisions to ensure they serve the public interest rather than private ones. While citizens have a right to access administrative records to scrutinise public decisions, this does not strip public officials of their right to privacy. Media exposure that reveals personal assets without evidence of wrongdoing constitutes an intolerable violation of privacy rather than a promotion of transparency. The pursuit of transparency must not devolve into a mix of gossip and punitive impulses that damage reputations and discourage public service.