The legal nature of the individual complaint of habeas data is that of voluntary jurisdiction, which means that the person whose privacy is being compromised can be the only one to present it.
Other individual complaints include the writ of mandamus (USA), amparo (Spain, Mexico and Argentina), and respondeat superior (Taiwan).
The habeas data writ itself has a very short history, but its origins can be traced to certain European legal mechanisms that protected individual privacy.
In 1988, the Brazilian legislature voted to introduce a new constitution, which included a novel right: the habeas data individual complaint.
After that, many countries followed suit and adopted the new legal tool in their respective constitutions: Paraguay in 1992, Peru in 1993, Argentina in 1994, and Ecuador in 1996.