Law Commons^™

Breached!: Why Data Security Law Fails And How To Improve It, Woodrow Hartzog, Daniel Solove

Books

Digital connections permeate our lives—and so do data breaches. Given that we must be online for basic communication, finance, healthcare, and more, it is remarkable how difficult it is to secure our personal information. Despite the passage of many data security laws, data breaches are increasing at a record pace. In their book, BREACHED! WHY DATA SECURITY LAW FAILS AND HOW TO IMPROVE IT (Oxford University Press 2022), Professors Daniel Solove and Woodrow Hartzog argue that the law fails because, ironically, it focuses too much on the breach itself.

Drawing insights from many fascinating stories about data breaches, Solove and …

The Overlapping Web Of Data, Territoriality And Sovereignty, Jennifer Daskal

Contributions to Books

Provides a framework to better understand Global Legal Pluralism and the current international state of law.

Equips practitioners, theorists, and students with deeper insights and analytical tools to describe the conflict among legal and quasi-legal systems.

Analyzes global legal pluralism in light of legal theory, constitutionalism, conflict of laws, international law, commercial transactions, and as it affects indigenous polities, religious orders, and citizenship.

Annual Report, 2019 (Five Year Report 2013-2019)

Tech Policy Lab

With this report, we celebrate the Tech Policy Lab’s five-year anniversary. We are deeply grateful to the community for helping us mark this milestone. We came together in the fall of 2013 to create a deeply interdisciplinary research collaboration with real-world impacts. We chose to model our new collaboration on a laboratory—a place to experiment with a distinct interdisciplinary model for research, to develop tangible and innovative new resources, and to train the next generation of tech policy experts. With co-equal faculty directors from three distinct disciplines, and students and faculty from many more, we set out to bridge the …

Annual Report, 2018, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington has become an indispensable source for tech policy research, education, and local, national, and international thought leadership. The Lab has worked directly with policymakers, published research and guides on emerging technologies, and provided opportunities for the public to learn from experts.

Is Tricking A Robot Hacking?, Ryan Calo, Ivan Evtimov, Earlence Fernandes, Tadayoshi Kohno, David O'Hair

Tech Policy Lab

The authors of this essay represent an interdisciplinary team of experts in machine learning, computer security, and law. Our aim is to introduce the law and policy community within and beyond academia to the ways adversarial machine learning (ML) alter the nature of hacking and with it the cybersecurity landscape. Using the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986—the paradigmatic federal anti-hacking law—as a case study, we mean to evidence the burgeoning disconnect between law and technical practice. And we hope to explain what is at stake should we fail to address the uncertainty that flows from the prospect that …

Annual Report, 2017, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington has emerged as a leading resource for policymakers interested in wiser and more inclusive technology policy. This year the Lab built on its reputation for excellence in interdisciplinary research, published scholarship and tools to benefit tech policy, and had direct input into policymaking at multiple levels of government.

Employer Liability And Bring Your Own Device: Do Existing Regulations Support Employer Liability For A Compromised Personal Device?, Beth A. Hutchens

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

As employers increasingly permit employees to use their personal devices (known as Bring Your Own Device, or “BYOD”) for business purposes, and as the risk of data exposure continues to rise, the question of how, when, and against whom to attach liability remains in flux. This paper will endeavor to explore employer liability as viewed through the lens of hacked or compromised BYOD devices. The research begins by identifying BYOD as a concept along with the risks and benefits incident to the practice. It then discusses current state and federal data protection regulations. It then explores recurring themes in data …

Algorithmic Discrimination White Paper, Vicky Wei, Teresa Stephenson

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

Technological innovation has led to the prevalent use of algorithms in everyday decision making. So ubiquitous is the application of algorithms that many may not recognize its impact on their daily lives. From online shopping to applying for a home loan, algorithms are at play in categorizing and filtering individuals to serve the goal of providing more accurate and efficient results than human decisionmaking would. At the basic level, algorithms are nothing more than a series of step-by-step instructions compiled by a computer, which then analyzes swaths of data based on those instructions. However, when algorithms use incorrect variables to …

Regulating The Internet Of Things: Protecting The "Smart" Home, Beth Hutchens, Gavin Keene, David Stieber

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

The Internet of Things (IoT)—the internetworking of “smart” devices for the purpose of collecting and exchanging data—is developing rapidly. Estimates of the number of IoT devices currently in circulation range from 6.4 to 17.6 billion. By 2020, those numbers could reach upward of 30 billion. While the technology encourages innovation and promotes data-driven policymaking, it also compromises consumer privacy, security, and safety. Consumers are generally unaware that IoT devices transmit scores of personally-identifiable information with only rudimentary security protections in place. For some devices, inadequate security measures unnecessarily risk consumer safety by leaving the devices vulnerable to remote manipulation by …

Toys That Listen: A Study Of Parents, Children, And Internet-Connected Toys, Emily Mcreynolds, Sarah Hubbard, Timothy Lau, Aditya Saraf, Maya Cakmak, Franziska Roesner

Tech Policy Lab

Hello Barbie, CogniToys Dino, and Amazon Echo are part of a new wave of connected toys and gadgets for the home that listen. Unlike the smartphone, these devices are always on, blending into the background until needed. We conducted interviews with parent-child pairs in which they interacted with Hello Barbie and CogniToys Dino, shedding light on children’s expectations of the toys’ “intelligence” and parents’ privacy concerns and expectations for parental controls. We find that children were often unaware that others might be able to hear what was said to the toy, and that some parents draw connections between the toys …

Annual Report, 2016, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington has had an exciting third year! From organizing national and international policy fora to helping local authorities generate best practices, the Lab continues its record of rigorous, impactful research.

Augmented Reality: A Technology And Policy Primer, Ryan Calo, Tamara Denning, Batya Friedman, Tadayoshi Kohno, Lassana Magassa, Emily Mcreynolds, Bryce Clayton Newell, Jesse Woo

Tech Policy Lab

The vision for AR dates back at least until the 1960s with the work of Ivan Sutherland. In a way, AR represents a natural evolution of information communication technology. Our phones, cars, and other devices are increasingly reactive to the world around us. But AR also represents a serious departure from the way people have perceived data for most of human history: a Neolithic cave painting or book operates like a laptop insofar as each presents information to the user in a way that is external to her and separate from her present reality. By contrast, AR begins to collapse …

Second Annual Report, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington continues to pick up steam in our second year. We have hosted national policy discussions, collaborated directly with policymakers on open data and other issues, and continue to develop strong, method-based interdisciplinary research.

Gigabit Internet In Seattle, Sam Méndez

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

On December 13, 2012 then-Mayor Mike McGinn announced a partnership between the City of Seattle, the University of Washington, and a company called Gigabit Squared that was to bring ultra high speed Internet connections to twelve neighborhoods within Seattle.1 Called Gigabit Seattle, the plan promised a fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network to 50,000 city households and businesses, serving over 100,000 residents.2 The letter of intent between the city and Gigabit Squared stated the company would seek $25 million in capital with the network built and operational within 24 months that would provide connection speeds to customers of up to 1000 megabits per …

Crytographic Currencies From A Tech-Policy Perspective: Policy Issues And Technical Directions, Emily Mcreynolds, Adam Learner, Will Scott, Franziska Roesner, Tadayoshi Kohno

Tech Policy Lab

We study legal and policy issues surrounding crypto currencies, such as Bitcoin, and how those issues interact with technical design options. With an interdisciplinary team, we consider in depth a variety of issues surrounding law, policy, and crypto currencies—such as the physical location where a crypto currency’s value exists for jurisdictional and other purposes, the regulation of anonymous or pseudonymous currencies, and challenges as virtual currency protocols and laws evolve. We reflect on how different technical directions may interact with the relevant laws and policies, raising key issues for both policy experts and technologists.

The Lab's First Year, University Of Washington School Of Law

Tech Policy Lab

The Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington is off to an energetic start, thanks to a transformative founding gift from Microsoft and the efforts of our staff, students, and colleagues. We have hosted important policy conversations, carefully put into place the methods of procedure for true interdisciplinary research, and completed or initiated a variety of important projects around emerging technology policy.

3d Printers, James Barker, Nicholas Pleasants, Peter Montine, Shudan Zhu

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

A preliminary report, addressing potential market disruption, the state of the law, and recommendations on future legislative action regarding consumer-grade 3D printing.

Tor Exit Nodes: Legal And Policy Considerations, Sarah Campbell Eagle, Abigail St. Hilaire, Kelly Sherwood

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

Anonymity Networks

The Internet is a constant companion to people the world over and as technology improves it is becoming more accessible every day. With the amount of communication that occurs online, it was only a matter of time before anonymity became an important topic of discussion. Several so-called “anonymity networks” have been developed to facilitate anonymous communication by the citizens of the web. Because the use of these networks is already so widespread, the time is ripe for a discussion of their merits and potential government responses to this phenomenon. An anonymity network “enables users to access the Web …

Broadband And Economic Development, University Of Washington Technology Law And Public Policy Clinic

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

Technology is essential for economic growth and job creation. Ensuring Washington has 21st century digital infrastructure, such as high-speed broadband Internet access, fourth-generation (4G) wireless networks, new healthcare information technology and a modernized electrical grid, is critical to the long-term prosperity and competitiveness of our state. The Internet is a global platform for communication, commerce and individual expression, and now promises to support breakthroughs in important national priorities such as healthcare, education and energy. Additionally, the Internet and information technology can be applied to make government more effective, transparent and accessible to all Americans.

For Washington, improvement of broadband access …

Data Protection Principles For The 21st Century, Fred H. Cate, Peter Cullen, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger

Books & Book Chapters by Maurer Faculty

This paper proposes revisions to the OECD Guidelines that include basic changes essential for the protection of individual privacy in the 21st century, while avoiding unnecessary restrictions on uses of personal information that are increasingly important.

Safe To Be Open: Study On The Protection Of Research Data And Recommendations For Access And Usage, Lucie Guibault, Andreas Wiebe

Books

Openness has become a common concept in a growing number of scientific and academic fields. Expressions such as Open Access (OA) or Open Content (OC) are often employed for publications of papers and research results, or are contained as conditions in tenders issued by a number of funding agencies. More recently the concept of Open Data (OD) is of growing interest in some fields, particularly those that produce large amounts of data – which are not usually protected by standard legal tools such as copyright. However, a thorough understanding of the meaning of Openness – especially its legal implications – …

Wiretapping And Eavesdropping: Surveillance In The Internet Age, 3rd Ed., Anne T. Mckenna, Clifford S. Fishman

Books

The third edition of the seminal “Fishman & McKenna” Wiretapping treatise analyzes federal and state law and the rapidly evolving civil and criminal legal issues and privacy issues surrounding the Internet, computers, cellular devices, electronic location tracking, drones, and biometrics. Since its publication, this treatise has been cited in multiple published federal and state judicial opinions, including by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in August 2010 and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in August 2014. The third edition is a well-known resource for attorneys working in private practice and in …

Digital Copyright, Jessica D. Litman

Books

In 1998, copyright lobbyists succeeded in persuading Congress to enact laws greatly expanding copyright owners' control over individuals' private uses of their works. The efforts to enforce these new rights have resulted in highly publicized legal battles between established media and new upstarts.

In this book, law professor Jessica Litman questions whether copyright laws crafted by lawyers and their lobbyists really make sense for the vast majority of us. Should every interaction between ordinary consumers and copyright-protected works be restricted by law? Is it practical to enforce such laws, or expect consumers to obey them? What are the effects of …