This paper concerns itself, not with the collection by governmental and commercial agencies of information about everyone in the community, but with the role that the built environment plays in providing privacy for individuals and families. The need for privacy by members of the family, and the family and its members in relation to the neighbourhood is discussed in some detail. It is claimed that privacy ‘provides an environment within which a person can establish his own self identity…’ The author concludes that while there is a need for architects and town planners to prevent that degree of isolation that leads to ‘suburban neurosis’, ‘there is a need to provide people with control over when and how they will interact with others’.