Law Commons^™

Corporate Social Responsibility And Social Media Corporations: Incorporating Human Rights Through Rankings, Self-Regulation And Shareholder Resolutions, Erika George

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the emergence and evolution of selected ranking and reporting frameworks in the expanding realm of business and human rights advocacy. It explores how indicators in the form of rankings and reports evaluating the conduct of transnational corporate actors can serve as regulatory tools with potential to bridge a global governance gap that often places human rights at risk. This article examines the relationship of transnational corporations in the Internet communications technology sector (ICT sector) to human rights and the risks presented to the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy when ICT sector companies …

Dating Dangerously: Risks Lurking Within Mobile Dating Apps, Alyssa Murphy

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

In modern society, cell phones have become a virtual extension of most Americans. Advances in cell phone technology have given rise to the popularity of mobile dating applications (“apps”), which are capable of allowing users to date and meet potential partners without leaving the comfort of their own homes. The convenience and allure of mobile dating apps has led to a staggering increase in the number of crimes orchestrated against other users of the apps. Such crimes often include solicitation, stalking, murder, and human trafficking. Unsuspecting and trusting users fall victim to these crimes due to the false sense of …

Smart Baby Monitors: The Modern Nanny Or A Home Invader, Sarah Ensenat

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Smart baby monitors exist to help parents protect and watch over their children. The smart baby monitors act as a second set of eyes when parents cannot be in the same room as their children. Low-tech hackers take advantage of gaps in the security of smart baby monitors. A hacker violates a consumer’s privacy by gaining access to private information, viewing the home and its occupants, and even speaking to children through the monitor.

This comment advocates for stricter security legislation for smart baby monitors. Without new legislation, manufacturers of smart baby monitors do not apply or invest in the …

Defamation And Privacy In The Social Media Age: What Would Justice Brennan Think?, Stephen Wermiel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

"I Call Alexa To The Stand": The Privacy Implications Of Anthropomorphizing Virtual Assistants Accompanying Smart-Home Technology, Christopher B. Burkett

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Note offers a solution to the unique privacy issues posed by the increasingly humanlike interactions users have with virtual assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa, which accompany smart-home technology. These interactions almost certainly result in the users engaging in the cognitive phenomenon of anthropomorphism--more specifically, an assignment of agency. This is a phenomenon that has heretofore been ignored in the legal context, but both the rapidity of technological advancement and inadequacy of current applicable legal doctrine necessitate its consideration now. Since users view these anthropomorphized virtual assistants as persons rather than machines, the law should treat them as such. To …

Microsoft Ireland, The Cloud Act, And International Lawmaking 2.0, Jennifer Daskal

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

On March 23, President Trump signed the CLOUD Act, 1 thereby mooting one of the most closely watched Supreme Court cases this term: the Microsoft Ireland case. 2 This essay examines these extraordinary and fast-moving developments, explaining how the Act resolves the Supreme Court case and addresses the complicated questions of jurisdiction over data in the cloud. The developments represent a classic case of international lawmaking via domestic regulation, as mediated by major multinational corporations that manage so much of the world's data.

Are Privacy Laws Deficient?, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

Privacy law around the world is deficient because it ignores design. Lawmakers have attempted to establish limits on the collection, use, and distribution of personal information. But they have largely overlooked the power of design. They have discounted the role that design plays in facilitating the conduct and harm privacy law is meant to prevent. Design pitches and picks privacy winners and losers, with people as data subjects and surveillance objects often on the losing side.

Why Courts Fail To Protect Privacy: Race, Age, Bias, And Technology, Christopher Robertson, Bernard Chao, Ian Farrell, Catherine Durso

Faculty Scholarship

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable “searches and seizures,” but in the digital age of stingray devices and IP tracking, what constitutes a search or seizure? The Supreme Court has held that the threshold question is supposed to depend on and reflect the “reasonable expectations” of ordinary members of the public concerning their own privacy. For example, the police now exploit the “third party” doctrine to access data held by email and cell phone providers, without securing a warrant, on the Supreme Court’s intuition that the public has no expectation of privacy in that information. Is that assumption correct? If …