Law Commons^™

Privacy Issues And Solutions In Social Network Sites, Xi Chen, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

The boom of the internet and the explosion of new technologies have brought with them new challenges and thus new connotations of privacy. Clearly, when people deal with e-government and e-business, they do not only need the right to be let alone, but also to be let in secret. Not only do they need freedom of movement, but also to be assured of the secrecy of their information. Solove [6] has critiqued traditional definitions of privacy and argued that they do not address privacy issues created by new online technologies. Austin [7] also asserts: “[w]e do need to sharpen and …

Virtual Parentalism, Joshua A.T. Fairfield

Joshua A.T. Fairfield

Parents, not Laws, ultimately protect children both online and offline. If legislation places adults at legal risk because of the presence of children in virtual worlds, adults will exit those worlds, and children will be isolated into separate spaces. This will not improve safety for children. Instead, this Article suggests that Congress enact measures that encourage filtering technology and parental tools that will both protect children in virtual worlds, and protectfree speech online.

After Privacy: The Rise Of Facebook, The Fall Of Wikileaks, And Singapore’S Personal Data Protection Act 2012, Simon Chesterman

Simon Chesterman

This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared — exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks — and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal regime has also been undermined by the lack of a strong theory of what privacy is. There is more promise in the narrower field of data protection. Singapore, which does not recognise a right to privacy, has positioned itself as an e-commerce hub but had no …

To Drink The Cup Of Fury: Funeral Picketing, Public Discourse And The First Amendment, Steven J. Heyman

Steven J. Heyman

In Snyder v. Phelps, the Supreme Court held that the Westboro Baptist Church had a First Amendment right to picket the funeral of a young soldier killed in Iraq. This decision reinforces a position that has become increasingly prevalent in First Amendment jurisprudence – the view that the state may not regulate public discourse to protect individuals from emotional or dignitary injury. In this Article, I argue that this view is deeply problematic for two reasons: it unduly sacrifices the value of individual personality and it tends to undermine the sphere of public discourse itself by negating the practical and …

Survey Of Recent European Union Privacy Developments, W. Gregory Voss

W. Gregory Voss

The Spanish law implementing the European Union (EU) Data Protection Directive, advisory guidance on consent, facial recognition and biometric technologies from the European Union Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (WP29) , and proposals for EU data protection law reform are analyzed in this survey piece. EU legislative processes are illustrated by a specific occurence: Spanish Organic Law 15/1999 on the Protection of Personal Data is reviewed in the context of Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) joined cases, Asociación Nacional de Establecimientos Financieros de Crédito (ASNEF) v. Administración del Estado, and Federación de Comercio Electrónico y Marketing …

Implementación De Políticas Corporativas Sobre Internet Y Redes Sociales En México, Rodolfo C. Rivas Rea Esq.

Rodolfo C. Rivas

The author analyzes and describes the necessary elements of a successful social media and Internet corporate policy; through citing common pitfalls and learning lessons from different jurisdictions across the world. The author then offers general guidelines on policies for Mexican enterprises under Mexican legislation.///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////El autor analiza y describe los elementos necesarios de una política corporativa sobre internet y redes sociales exitosa, citando los errores más comunes y aprendiendo lecciones de las legislaciones de distintos países.

Brief Of Aarp And The National Legislative Association On Prescription Drug Prices As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Sean Flynn

Sean Flynn

This brief was written in support of Vermont’s Prescription Confidentiality Law, which regulates the confidentiality of prescription records and protects them from being used by pharmaceutical companies as a “targeting tool” to identify doctors most susceptible to sales messages.

Agricultural Secrecy: Going Dark Down On The Farm: How Legalized Secrecy Gives Agribusiness A Federally Funded Free Ride, Rena I. Steinzor, Yee Huang

Rena I. Steinzor

This briefing paper examines the agricultural secrecy granted by section 1619 of the 2008 Farm Bill, its implications for transparency and oversight, and its impact on other federal agencies such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In an era of fiscal responsibility, tight budgets, and increasing pressure on the environment, the public has a right to know whether the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is making the best decisions about how to allocate public funds. Each year, agricultural producers in the United States receive billions of dollars in federal payments: crop subsidies, crop insurance, conservation payments, disaster payments, loans, …

The Drones Are Coming! Will The Fourth Amendment Stop The Threat To Our Privacy., Robert Molko

Robert Molko

The Drones are coming!

Will the Fourth Amendment Stop their Threat to our Privacy?

Local police have begun to use drones and are planning to expand their use of to survey communities for criminal activity.

On February 14, 2012, President Obama signed the “FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012″ into law; it requires the FAA to expedite the process to authorize both public and private use of drones in the national navigable airspace.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects our privacy from unreasonable intrusions by the government and we have come to depend on that.

Today, in …

Piracy,Privacy, And Privatization: Fictional And Legal Approaches To The Electronic Future Of Cash , Walter A. Effross

Walter Effross

No abstract provided.

How To Address Privacy Concerns Of Internet Users?, Tao Liang

Tao LIANG

Social Implications Of Technology: Past, Present, And Future, Karl D. Stephan, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael, Laura Jacob, Emily Anesta

Professor Katina Michael

The social implications of a wide variety of technologies are the subject matter of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT). This paper reviews the SSIT’s contributions since the Society’s founding in 1982, and surveys the outlook for certain key technologies that may have significant social impacts in the future. Military and security technologies, always of significant interest to SSIT, may become more autonomous with less human intervention, and this may have both good and bad consequences. We examine some current trends such as mobile, wearable, and pervasive computing, and find both dangers and opportunities in these trends. …

Photo Radar Enforcement As A Slippery Slope, Andrew Askland

Andrew Askland

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Securing The Cloud: Cloud Computer Security Techniques And Tactics, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

With so much buzz around Cloud Computing, books like this one written by Winkler are much in demand. Winkler’s experience in the computing business shines through and as readers we are spoiled with a great deal of useful strategic information- a jam packed almost 300 page volume on securing the cloud.

The Anatomy Of A Search: Intrusiveness And The Fourth Amendment, Renée Mcdonald Hutchins

Renée M. Hutchins

No abstract provided.

Information Revolution: “Choice Of Control” To “Choice And Control”, Subhajit Basu, Christina Munns

Subhajit Basu

Please do not cite without permission of the authors.

In this article, we critically analyse whether the ‘privacy framework’ for health records is ‘fit-for-purpose’ for the NHS’s ‘information revolution’ and argue that the NHS’s ‘proxy-individual’ information-guardian role could inadvertently mask individuals’ intended roles, effectively circumventing autonomy-based laws by limiting the power of individuals to be autonomous. We suggest that moving ‘choice of control’ to individuals will render ‘privacy’ redundant whilst validating ‘confidentiality’ via consent from empowered individuals. This power shift would expose the overdue need for options to increase levels of individual ‘control/privacy,’ moving from the NHS’s paternal ‘proxy-individual’ conception …

Can A Computer Intercept Your Email?, Bruce E. Boyden

Bruce E. Boyden

In recent years it has become feasible for computers to rapidly scan the contents of large amounts of communications traffic to identify certain characteristics of those messages: that they are spam, contain malware, discuss various products or services, are written in a particular dialect, contain copyright-infringing files, or discuss symptoms of particular diseases. There is a wide variety of potential uses for this technology, such as research, filtering, or advertising. But the legal status of automated processing, if it is done without advance consent, is unclear. Where it results in the disclosure of the contents of a message to others, …

Details: Specific Facts And The First Amendment, Ashutosh A. Bhagwat

Ashutosh Bhagwat

First Amendment theory and judicial decisions have traditionally focused their analysis primarily on the regulation and suppression of ideas, opinions, and advocacy. The great free speech disputes of the Twentieth Century have produced a robust body of law which, at least in the political sphere, gives very strong protection to such speech. But ideas and opinions are not the only sorts of information conveyed by speech. What about facts, and in particular, what about specific facts, what I call details? Cases such as New York Times v. Sullivan and its progeny discuss the proper treatment of false facts, but what …

Details: Specific Facts And The First Amendment, Ashutosh A. Bhagwat

Ashutosh Bhagwat

First Amendment theory and judicial decisions have traditionally focused their analysis primarily on the regulation and suppression of ideas, opinions, and advocacy. The great free speech disputes of the Twentieth Century have produced a robust body of law which, at least in the political sphere, gives very strong protection to such speech. But ideas and opinions are not the only sorts of information conveyed by speech. What about facts, and in particular, what about specific facts, what I call details? Cases such as New York Times v. Sullivan and its progeny discuss the proper treatment of false facts, but what …

Interoperable Electronic Healthcare Record: A Case For Adoption Of A National Standard To Stem The Ongoing Healthcare Crisis, Deth Sao, Amar Gupta, David A. Gantz

Deth Sao

Interoperable electronic health records (EHR) have the capacity to deliver health care at optimal costs and quality in the United States, but current private and public initiatives have delayed nationwide implementation by failing to overcome several obstacles. These obstacles include: widespread reluctance in adopting health information technology (HIT); differing technical and semantic standards for communication between vendor systems; and legal challenges, which are mainly based on liability, privacy, and security concerns. This paper examines these challenges and the inadequacies of current HIT-EHR implementation strategies, questioning in particular the validity of privacy and security-based concerns. A comparison with the U.S. finance …

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 different 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. What was happening regarding privacy in the late 19th century happens now with identity. Changes in technology and social standards make the very notion of identity increasingly fluid, …

Location Privacy Under Dire Threat As Uberveillance Stalks The Streets, Katina Michael, Roger Clarke

Associate Professor Katina Michael

Location tracking and monitoring applications have proliferated with the arrival of smart phones that are equipped with onboard global positioning system (GPS) chipsets. It is now possible to locate a smart phone user down to 10 metres of accuracy on average. Innovators have been quick to capitalise on this emerging market by introducing novel pedestrian tracking technologies which can denote the geographic path of a mobile user. At the same time there is contention by law enforcement personnel over the need for a warrant process to track an individual in a public space. This paper considers the future of location …

Understanding 'The Loop': Regulating The Next Generation Of War Machines, William Marra, Sonia Mcneil

William Marra

The United States is in the midst of a national debate about the role drone aircraft should play in warfare abroad and law enforcement at home. Armed drones hunt enemies abroad 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Drones have begun to patrol our domestic skies too, on the lookout for suspicious activity. But contemporary drones are merely the “Model T” of robot technology. Today, humans are still very much “in the loop”: humans decide when to launch a drone, where it should fly, and whether it should take action against a suspect. But as drones develop greater autonomy, …

Data Protection: Idealisms And Realisms, Rebecca Wong Dr

Dr Rebecca Wong

Following proposals to consider revising the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (DPD) in 2011, have the changes addressed the main areas of concern that have been the focus of much discussion? The areas of concern include the application of the Directive in the online age, particularly to social networking sites and cloud computing; the minimum/maximum standard approach by the EU Member States to data protection; the relevance and application of the data protection principles. These are some of the issues that were considered in the recent Art. 29 Working Party’s Opinion on the Future of Privacy. The article will use this …

Reframing Roe: Property Over Privacy, Rebecca Rausch

Rebecca L. Rausch

Roe v. Wade has received much criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Though the perspectives of the two camps differ significantly, players from each share at least one common critique of the landmark decision. Specifically, both sides are skeptical about the lack of an express Constitutional right to privacy, on which the Supreme Court in Roe based its decision to find a “fundamental” right to abortion. This lack of Constitutional context and legal history renders Roe vulnerable. In addition, pro-choice advocates find fault with the privacy basis because it yields no positive rights to funding or access support …

Behavioral Advertising: From One-Sided Chicken To Informational Norms, Richard Warner, Robert Sloan

Richard Warner

When you download the free audio recording software from Audacity, you agree that Audacity may collect your information and use it to send you advertising. Billions of such pay-with-data exchanges feed information daily to a massive advertising ecosystem that tailors web site advertising as closely as possible to individual interests. The vast majority want considerably more control over our information. We nonetheless routinely enter pay-with-data exchanges when we visit CNN.com, use Gmail, or visit any of a vast number of other websites. Why? And, what, if anything, should we do about it? We answer both questions by describing pay-with-data exchanges …

Expectations Of Privacy In Social Media, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

This article, which largely tracks my remarks at Mississippi College’s Social Media Symposium, examines expectations of privacy in social media such as weblogs (blogs), Facebook pages, and Twitter tweets. Social media is diverse and ever-diversifying, and while I address some of that complexity, I focus on the core functionality, which provides the groundwork for further conversation as the technology and related social norms develop. As one would expect, just as with our offline communications and other online communications, in some we have an expectation of privacy that is recognized by current law, in some we have an expectation of privacy …