Is Chile a private country?
Chile has a solid legal foundation on privacy: the right to a private life and to the protection of personal data is enshrined in the Constitution, in article 19 No. 4. That is no small thing — few countries in the region have raised this principle to constitutional rank. And yet that guarantee, important as it is, has not been enough.
In practice, data protection is still weak, fragmented and often ignored by the very people who should be complying with it.
We get asked for our RUT for everything. Hotels photocopy our passport, clinics demand our ID card, even gyms do. In plenty of places, if we don't hand over our data we don't get the offer or, worse, the full service.
According to the 2024 Global Call Threat Report, we get an average of 28 unwanted phone calls a month. We are among the countries with the most phone spam in the world. Our data is scattered, copied into databases we never knew existed.
Distrust is widespread: 83% of Chileans don't believe their data is well protected, by the State or by private companies. SERNAC does offer initiatives like “No molestar” to block calls, but the underlying problem remains: our personal data is already scattered. Patches don't fix that. A structural change is now on the table, but that isn't enough.
As citizens we care about privacy — 72% say they fear having their data collected — but we don't act on it: 48.9% never read privacy policies. The gap between intention and action is brutal.
According to Cisco's Consumer Privacy Survey (2023), younger generations are starting to move: 42% of consumers aged 18 to 24 already exercise their data access rights, compared with just 6% of those over 75. That's a sign of change. Not necessarily because they are digitally savvy, but because they are growing up in a world where control over your data is already part of your identity.
Even so, the cultural lag runs deep.
Law 21.719 was published in December 2024. It regulates the processing of personal data and creates the Agencia de Protección de Datos Personales. The law updates and modernizes the old Law No. 19.628, raising the standard of protection. It takes effect in December 2026, but the future isn't waiting. With the arrival of autonomous agents — artificial intelligence that interacts with, collects and processes information in real time — we can't keep working to a low or reactive standard. What today looks like annoying phone calls could tomorrow become a real, deep and invisible risk. Are we ready as a country to protect what is ours on this new internet? And this time, will we live up to our own declarations? Good intentions are not enough.
As a country, we have to work together and demand that companies and public institutions meet the new privacy standard. Having the declaration in the Constitution and a modernized law behind it is a tremendous start. Now we need digital services to match it, technology to work in our favor, and privacy to genuinely matter to us as a society.
Back to the opening question: is Chile a private country? In my view, not yet.
But we do have the chance to become one.
And who knows, maybe even become a privacy benchmark for Latin America and the world. Because when this country sets its mind to something, it gets it done.
