Digital Commons Network^™

De Rechtsstaat In Cyberspace?, Mireille Hildebrandt

Mireille Hildebrandt

Cyberspace is inmiddels overal. Wat tien jaar geleden misschien nog een aparte niet-fysieke wereld leek waar niemand wist dat je een hond was, gaat steeds meer lijken op een verzameling onderling verbonden dorpspleinen. Met dien verstande dat alles wat iedereen doet permanent wordt opgenomen, opgeslagen en doorzocht op betekenisvolle patronen. Steeds meer personen, organisaties maar ook dingen raken verbonden via het internet. De Internationale Telecommunicatie Unie sprak in 2005 van het ‘internet van de dingen’, om aan te geven dat binnen afzienbare tijd alles overal (‘everyware’) via draadloze identificatiesystemen traceerbaar is. Intussen raakt iedereen via de smartphone ‘always on(line)’. Deze …

Cloud Computing Providers And Data Security Law: Building Trust With United States Companies, Jared A. Harshbarger Esq.

Jared A. Harshbarger

Cloud computing and software-as-a-service (SaaS) models are revolutionizing the information technology industry. As these services become more prevalent, data security and privacy concerns will also rise among consumers and the companies who consider using them. Cloud computing providers must establish a sufficient level of trust with their potential customers in order to ease initial fears - and ensure certain compliance obligations will be met - at least to the extent that any such inquiring customer will feel comfortable enough to ultimately take the irreversible step of releasing their sensitive data and personal information into the cloud.

Right To Information Identity, Elad Oreg

Elad Oreg

Inspired by the famous Warren&Brandeis conceptualization of the "right to privacy", this article tries to answer a modern conceptual lacuna and present the argument for the need to conceptualize and recognize a new, independent legal principle of a "right to information-identity". This is the right of an individual to the functionality of the information platforms that enable others to identify and know him and to remember who and what he is. Changes in technology and social standards make the very notion of identity increasingly fluid, transforming the way it is treated and opening new and fascinating ways of relating to …

Lawrence V. Texas: The Decision And Its Implications For The Future, Martin A. Schwartz

Martin A. Schwartz

No abstract provided.

Personal Data Protection In The Era Of Cloud Computing. New Challenges For European Regulators., Panagiotis Kitsos, Paraskevi Pappas

Panagiotis Kitsos

It is widely aknowledged that we are entering in an era of revolutionary changes in the field of Information and Communication Technologies . The spread of broadband internet connections has led internet to function not only as a communications network but also as a platform for new computing applications. The most recent application is the so called "cloud computing", which permits the running of software applications or the storage of data to be performed at remote servers which are connected to our computers through the Internet. Examples of these applications are the web-based email services, online computer back up, data …

Tragedy Of The Data Commons, Jane Yakowitz

Jane Yakowitz

Accurate data is vital to enlightened research and policymaking, particularly publicly available data that are redacted to protect the identity of individuals. Legal academics, however, are campaigning against data anonymization as a means to protect privacy, contending that the wealth of information available on the Internet enables malfeasors to reverse-engineer the data and identify research subjects. Privacy scholars advocate for stringent new legal restrictions on the collection and dissemination of research data. This Article challenges the dominant wisdom, arguing that properly de-identified data is not only safe, but of extraordinary social utility. It makes three core claims. First, legal scholars …

The Dao Of Privacy, Lara A. Ballard

Lara A Ballard

It is widely believed in some Western circles that a single multilateral human rights treaty, based largely on European models for data protection, can standardize a right to privacy on a global basis. It is also widely believed that East Asia has no real tradition of privacy. Both of these beliefs are mistaken. This Article explores the underlying philosophical assumptions beneath Western concepts of privacy that currently prevail on both sides of the Atlantic, by examining privacy through the lens of classical Daoism and the Northeast Asian philosophical tradition. Taking a cue from Professor Julie Cohen’s Configuring the Networked Self, …

Reconsidering A Parent’S ‘Apparent’ Authority In Intergenerational Co-Residence: The Need For A Paradigm Shift In Evaluating Parental Consent To Search Adult Children’S Bedrooms, Hillary B. Farber

Hillary B. Farber

Intergenerational households are the fastest growing living arrangement in the country. The foreclosure crisis, high unemployment rate, and exorbitant health care costs are causing adults across the generational spectrum to make choices based on their newly realized financial circumstances. An important social effect caused by the weakened economy is that more adult children are moving back into their parent’s home, and aging parents are increasingly seeking refuge in their adult child’s home.

Firmly established precedent makes clear that a parent’s consent to a police search of a minor child’s bedroom for evidence of a minor’s criminal activity is a reasonable …

¿Viva La Data Protection? Chile As A Touchstone For The Future Of Information Privacy, Nicola C. Menaldo

Nicola C. Menaldo

This paper attempts to uncover a puzzle: although the traditional levers for strong privacy protection are present in Chile – a history of dictatorship, an information technology revolution, and strong trade with the European Union – its data protection laws are in fact very weak. What explains this apparent disconnect? This paper challenges the conventional wisdom: that Chile's weak data protection regime is the result of weak democratic institutions, collective action problems, or the prioritization of credit data protections. Instead, it argues that Chile's stunted regime results from a political culture in which privacy protections, generally, are traded off for …

Fragile Merchandise: A Comparative Analysis Of The Privacy Rights For Public Figures, Scott Shackelford

Scott Shackelford

Over a century after Warren and Brandeis first presented the right to U.S. jurists for their consideration, privacy has become a central player in U.S. law. But nations around the world, in particular the common and civil law nations of Europe that share similar legal cultures with the United States, are grappling with how best to strike a balance between the competing rights of privacy and freedom of expression—both of which are critical to the functioning of democratic society. Existing literature has not fully drawn from this reservoir of international experience to inform the debate about U.S. privacy rights. This …

The Federal Trade Commission And Privacy: Defining Enforcement And Encouraging The Adoption Of Best Practices., Andrew B. Serwin

Andrew B. Serwin

This article examines the history of privacy enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission, including the FTC’s jurisdiction under Section 5, and its privacy enforcement matters, as well as the FTC's recently issued report, "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers", in which the FTC examines past enforcement models, noting their failings. In light of the FTC’s examination of past enforcement models, this article then analyzes these models, including the accountability-centric model that has previously been utilized in the United States, as well as the FTC’s proposed solution to the privacy problems …

The Future Of Privacy, Rebecca Wong Dr

Dr Rebecca Wong

The Art. 29 Working Party (hereinafter “Art. 29 WP”) is an influential body comprised of representatives from the Member State Data Protection Authorities2 established under the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC, has recently issued an opinion with the Working Party on Police and Justice. This is quite significant, since the opinion sets out some of the issues that will need to be addressed in the lead up to the revision of the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.3 This comes at a time, when there have been discussions on the current application of the European Data Protection Directive to the internet,4 (such as …

Cloud Control: Copyright, Global Memes And Privacy, Daniel J. Gervais, Daniel J. Hyndman

Daniel J Gervais

This paper examines the shift from the Internet connection paradigm to an amalgamation paradigm. Ultimately, almost all personal and commercial content will be stored or backed up in the computing Cloud. This is likely to change the way in which copyright is enforced and users' privacy is protected.

Harvey Milk, Jane Roe, And James Brady: The Contribution Of The Civic To The Evolution Of Law, Palma Joy Strand

palma joy strand

The lack of civility in political discourse and asserted negative effects of that lack of civility have recently drawn an increasing amount of popular attention. At the same time, legal scholars have characterized law—especially constitutional law articulated by the Supreme Court—as the result of a dialogue between the Court and the people. This article links these discussions with a unified explanation of how civic discourse among ordinary citizens in the form of personal story-telling and story-listening grounds stable and sustainable law—especially law in areas of evolving social norms. The article uses three contemporary sociolegal movements—gay rights, abortion rights, and gun …

The Privacy Bailout: State Government Involvement In The Privacy Arena, Corey A. Ciocchetti

Corey A Ciocchetti

In the midst of massive government involvement in the financial, real estate and automotive sectors, other important problems linger without sufficient governmental attention. This article focuses on one area where federal intervention has been particularly absent - the realm of individual privacy in the Information Age. The problem is that monitoring in the United States is increasingly powerful and takes many forms. Online, prominent Web sites collect, store and disseminate a great deal of personally identifying information (PII) without clearly and simply informing users. This is the case even though such notice is cheap and can be effective. Offline, technology …

Invasion Of The Social Networks: Blurring The Line Between Personal Life And The Employment Relationship, Robert Sprague

Robert Sprague

Over one-half billion people worldwide have registered accounts with Facebook, the most popular online social network. This article addresses some of the more significant employment-related legal issues arising from the growing popularity of online social networks. First, the need for employers to investigate the background of prospective employees is examined from the context of employers using online social networks to conduct those investigations. In particular, this article analyzes the degree to which job applicants have privacy rights in the information they post online. This article then examines the interrelationship between online social networks and employees, focusing on limitations faced by …

The Eavesdropping Employer: A Twenty-First Century Framework For Employee Monitoring, Corey A. Ciocchetti

Corey A Ciocchetti

The twenty-first century continues to usher in new and increasingly-powerful technology. This technology is both a blessing and a curse in the employment arena. Sophisticated monitoring software and hardware allow businesses to conduct basic business transactions, avoid liability, conduct investigations and, ultimately, achieve success in a competitive global environment. Employees can also benefit when monitoring provides immediate feedback, keeps the workforce efficient and focused and discourages unethical/illegal behavior. The same technology, however, allows employers to monitor every detail of their employees’ actions, communications and whereabouts both inside and outside the workplace. As more and more employers conduct some form of …

First-Class Objects, James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

What is the difference between "James Grimmelmann" and "@grimmelm" and why should we care? Some computer systems, like Facebook and credit reporting agencies, are inherently "about" people. Others are not. This essay argues that the key technical difference is whether they use unique identifiers to refer to people in their databases. From this single distinction, a host of social and humanistic consequences follow. The essay taxonomizes them and teases out some of their implications for privacy law.

The Timely Demise Of The Fourth Amendment Third Party Doctrine, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

In what may be a slightly premature obituary, in this response to a forthcoming paper by Matthew Tokson I argue that the Fourth Amendment third party doctrine "has at least taken ill, and it can be hoped it is an illness from which it will never recover." It is increasingly unpopular as a matter of state constitutional law, has long been assailed in scholarship but now thoughtful alternatives are percolating, and it cannot – or at least should not – withstand the pressures which technology and social norms are placing upon it. Even the Supreme Court seems loath to defend …

Known And Unknown, Property And Contract: Comments On Hoofnagle And Moringiello, James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

In addition to gerund-noun-noun titles and a concern with the misaligned incentives of businesses that handle consumers' financial data, Chris Hoofnagle's Internalizing Identity Theft and Juliet Moringiello's Warranting Data Security share something else: hidden themes. Hoofnagle's paper is officially about an empirical study of identity theft, but behind the scenes it's also an exploration of where we draw the line between public information shared freely and secret information used to authenticate individuals. Moringiello's paper is officially a proposal for a new warranty of secure handling of payment information, but under the surface, it invites us to think about the relationship …