Law Commons^™

Private Rights Of Action In Privacy Law, Lauren Henry Scholz

William & Mary Law Review

Many privacy advocates assume that the key to providing individuals with more privacy protection is strengthening the government’s power to directly sanction actors that hurt the privacy interests of citizens. This Article contests the conventional wisdom, arguing that private rights of action are essential for privacy regulation. First, I show how private rights of action make privacy law regimes more effective in general. Private rights of action are the most direct regulatory access point to the private sphere. They leverage private expertise and knowledge, create accountability through discovery, and have expressive value in creating privacy-protective norms. Then to illustrate the …

"A Novel And Controversial Technology." Artificial Face Recognition, Privacy Protection, And Algorithm Bias In Europe, Andrea Pin

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

R (Bridges) v. Chief Constable of South Wales Police's Court of Appeals ruling... showcases the variety and the thickness of the legal, ethical, and political considerations that lie underneath the deployment of [Artificial Face Recognition]-based police tools and its ramification within Europe and beyond. More broadly, the topic of "[f]acial recognition technologies provide[s] a useful case study of the complex and unpredictable ways that norms of procedural fairness, equality, and privacy interact when the state deploys machine-learning tools to draw inferences from otherwise unilluminating data." This Article uses Bridges as a proxy to sketch out the main legal issues …

Seeking A Safe Harbor In A Widening Sea: Unpacking The Schrems Saga And What It Means For Transatlantic Relations And Global Cybersecurity, Scott J. Shackelford

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The Article is structured as follows. Part I examines Schrems I (Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner) and the fall of the Safe Harbor regime. Part II analyzes Schrems II (Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook & Max Schrems) along with the rise and fall of Privacy Shield. Part III focuses on opportunities to bridge the data governance divide and present a united front to help ensure a free, open, interoperable, secure, and resilient vision for cyberspace.

This abstract has been adapted from the author's introduction.

Privacy Or The Polls: Public Voter Registration Laws As A Modern Form Of Vote Denial, Audrey Paige Sauer

William & Mary Law Review

On May 11, 2017, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order establishing the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (PACEI), with the mission to “study the registration and voting processes used in Federal elections.” Pursuant to this mission, Vice Chair of the Commission, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, sent out letters to state election officials soliciting all “publicly available voter roll data,” including all registrants’ full first and last names, middle names or initials, addresses, dates of birth, political party, last four digits of Social Security numbers if available, voter history from 2006 onward, information regarding any felony …

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act At Age 10: Gina’S Controversial Assertion That Data Transparency Protects Privacy And Civil Rights, Barbara J. Evans

William & Mary Law Review

The genomic testing industry is an edifice built on data transparency: transparent and often unconsented sharing of our genetic information with researchers to fuel scientific discovery, transparent sharing of our test results to help regulators infer whether the tests are safe and effective, and transparent sharing of our health information to help treat other patients on the premise that we gain reciprocity of advantage when each person’s health care is informed by the best available data about all of us. Transparency undeniably confers many social benefits but creates risks to the civil rights of the people whose genetic information is …

Carpenter V. United States And The Fourth Amendment: The Best Way Forward, Stephen E. Henderson

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

We finally have a federal ‘test case.’ In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court is poised to set the direction of the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. The case squarely presents how the twentieth-century third party doctrine will fare in contemporary times, and the stakes could not be higher. This Article reviews the Carpenter case and how it fits within the greater discussion of the Fourth Amendment third party doctrine and location surveillance, and I express a hope that the Court will be both a bit ambitious and a good measure cautious.

As for ambition, the Court …

The Fourth Amendment Disclosure Doctrines, Monu Bedi

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The third party and public disclosure doctrines (together the “disclosure doctrines”) are long-standing hurdles to Fourth Amendment protection. These doctrines have become increasingly relevant to assessing the government’s use of recent technologies such as data mining, drone surveillance, and cell site location data. It is surprising then that both the Supreme Court and scholars, at times, have associated them together as expressing one principle. It turns out that each relies on unique foundational triggers and does not stand or fall with the other. This Article tackles this issue and provides a comprehensive topology for analyzing the respective contours of each …

Obscured By Clouds: The Fourth Amendment And Searching Cloud Storage Accounts Through Locally Installed Software, Aaron J. Gold

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Privacy To Prevent Discrimination, Jessica L. Roberts

William & Mary Law Review

A person cannot consider information that she does not have. Unlawful discrimination, therefore, frequently requires discriminators to have knowledge about protected status. This Article exploits that simple reality, arguing that protecting privacy can prevent discrimination by restricting access to the very information discriminators use to discriminate. Although information related to many antidiscrimination categories, like race and sex, may be immediately apparent upon meeting a person, privacy law can still do significant work to prevent discrimination on the basis of less visible traits such as genetic information, age, national origin, ethnicity, and religion, as well as in cases of racial or …

Reconciling Privacy And Speech In The Era Of Big Data: A Comparative Legal Analysis, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

William & Mary Law Review

In both the United States and the nations of Western Europe, significant constitutional commitments safeguard both expressive freedom (including freedom of speech and of the press) and also a generalized constitutional right of privacy. With some regularity, however, these rights will come into conflict, as the protection of one right can be achieved only at the cost of abridging or denying the other. When a government official or public figure objects to the publication of an embarrassing photograph, perhaps taken by an invasive paparazzo, it is simply not possible to fully vindicate both a newspaper’s interest in publishing the photograph …

Why Data Privacy Law Is (Mostly) Constitutional, Neil M. Richards

William & Mary Law Review

Laws regulating the collection, use, and disclosure of personal data are (mostly) constitutional, and critics who suggest otherwise are wrong. Since the New Deal, American law has rested on the wise judgment that, by and large, commercial regulation should be made on the basis of economic and social policy, rather than blunt constitutional rules. This has become one of the basic principles of American constitutional law. Although some observers have suggested that the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. changes this state of affairs, such readings are incorrect. Sorrell involved a challenge to a …

Personal Curtilage: Fourth Amendment Security In Public, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

William & Mary Law Review

Do citizens have any Fourth Amendment protection from senseenhancing surveillance technologies in public? This Article engages a timely question as new surveillance technologies have redefined expectations of privacy in public spaces. It proposes a new theory of Fourth Amendment security based on the ancient theory of curtilage protection for private property. Curtilage has long been understood as a legal fiction that expands the protection of the home beyond the formal structures of the house. Based on custom and law protecting against both nosy neighbors and the government, curtilage was defined by the actions the property owner took to signal a …

Power And Responsibility: Fourth Amendment Limits On The Use Of Molecular Scanners, Paul Wolfgramm Jr.

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law And Procedure - Electronic Eavesdropping - Katz V. United States, 88 S. Ct. 507 (1967)

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.