Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Communications Law

Boston University School of Law

Series

Privacy

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Are Privacy Laws Deficient?, Woodrow Hartzog Jan 2018

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 Jan 2018

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 …


Bankruptcy Law V. Privacy Rights: Which Holds The Trump Card?, Maureen A. O'Rourke Jan 2001

Bankruptcy Law V. Privacy Rights: Which Holds The Trump Card?, Maureen A. O'Rourke

Faculty Scholarship

The Internet's emergence as a retail marketplace has both posed new issues and cast old problems in a new light. As technology, particularly software, has advanced over time, traditional bricks and mortar firms have acquired the capability of tracking and analyzing all sorts of information about their customers, including purchasing patterns and demographic information. For years, firms have been licensing and selling such customer data both in and out of bankruptcy without much fear of legal limitations. In particular, the law has generally not adopted privacy rules that would present a barrier to commerce in personal information.