Law Commons^™

Whose Rights Matter More—Police Privacy Or A Defendant’S Right To A Fair Trial?, Laurie L. Levenson

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible to the wall. His function is to vindicate the right of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial.

– William O. Douglas

A Place Of One's Own: How Law Libraries Support Democracy By Protecting Citizens' Right To Read, Amy A. Emerson

Faculty Publications

By offering places for private reading and contemplation, law libraries foster wellinformed citizens capable of independent thought. This process, in turn, provides a foundation for understanding the law, questioning the law, and ultimately challenging the legal status quo, all necessary elements of a well-functioning democracy.

Concealing In The Public Interest, Or Why We Must Teach Secrecy, Susan Maret

Secrecy and Society

Secrecy as the intentional or unintentional concealment of information is the subject of investigation within the humanities, social sciences, journalism, law and legal studies. However, the subject it is not widely taught as a distinct social problem within higher education. In this article, I report personal experience with developing and teaching a graduate level course on a particular type of secrecy, government secrecy, at the School of Information, San Jose State University. This article includes discussion on selecting course materials, creating assignments, and navigating controversial histories. This article also sets the stage to this special issue of Secrecy and Society …

Hipaa-Phobia Hampers Efforts To Track And Contain Covid-19, Lee Hiromoto M.D., J.D.

SLU Law Journal Online

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), enacted by the US Congress 1996, laudably protects medical privacy in healthcare settings. However, this federal law has created a culture of fear that limits current efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Healthcare providers, who are covered by HIPAA, may be reluctant to disclose information about outbreak clusters for fear of violating the law. Healthcare organizations, who are also covered by the law, still rely on fax machines to avoid violating HIPAA’s data security requirements. And the scrupulous rule-following in healthcare has given independent life to a HIPAA boogeyman. Thus, officials who …

Dysregulating The Media: Digital Redlining, Privacy Erosion, And The Unintentional Deregulation Of American Media, Jon M. Garon

Faculty Scholarship

Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and Apple have been joined by Disney+, Twitch, Facebook, and others to supplant the broadcast industry. As the FCC, FTC, and other regulators struggle, a new digital divide has emerged. The current regulatory regime for television is built upon the government’s right to manage over-the-air broadcasting. As content producers shift away from broadcast and cable, much of the government’s regulatory control will end, resulting in new consequences for public policy and new challenges involving privacy, advertising, and antitrust law. Despite the technological change, there are compelling government interests in a healthy media environment. This article explores the …

Post-Pandemic Privacy Law, Tiffany C. Li

Law Faculty Scholarship

COVD-19, the global pandemic that began in 2019, altered how we live our lives in just about every way imaginable. Some of those changes were obvious-for example, those who were fortunate enough to be able to work from home began working online-while other changes were more subtle. The latter category included unprecedented levels of data collection by governments and organizations purporting to collect information that would help stop the pandemic's spread. Given the deadly nature of COVID-19, few would question any public health efforts, no matter their impact on privacy. However, the lack of attention to privacy issues during the …

Privacy In Pandemic: Law, Technology, And Public Health In The Covid-19 Crisis, Tiffany C. Li

Law Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths and disastrous consequences around the world, with lasting repercussions for every field of law, including privacy and technology. The unique characteristics of this pandemic have precipitated an increase in use of new technologies, including remote communications platforms, healthcare robots, and medical Al. Public and private actors alike are using new technologies, like heat sensing, and technologically influenced programs, like contact tracing, leading to a rise in government and corporate surveillance in sectors like healthcare, employment, education, and commerce. Advocates have raised the alarm for privacy and civil liberties violations, but the emergency …

Invasion Of School Children's Privacy: Teachers Need To Be Put In Timeout, John D. Janicek, Joseph H. Hanks

BYU Education & Law Journal

This article makes the argument that such social media posts constitute a serious invasion of a child’s privacy right, and that the responsibility for enforcement should fall on schools and school districts. However, since such enforcement is currently lacking, this article argues that potential remedies may exist within the framework of federal law. And if local education authorities continue to fail to address the problem, the article argues that a legislative approach might be called for, at the state, or even federal, level.

Student Privacy In The Digital Age, Susan G. Archambault

BYU Education & Law Journal

Students and teachers need to understand what rules govern their digital experience in terms of data being collected from the systems and software they use. Students have a tendency to share personal information online, and are largely unconcerned about third-party access to their data.30 Furthermore, they may feel pressured to waive privacy rights in order to participate in classroom activities requiring the use of educational technology tools.31 The recent COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this problem. In fact, The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and National Education Association (NEA) recently released new recommendations for the use of video conferencing platforms …

Too Big To Protect: A Dodd-Frank Framework For Protecting 21st Century American Consumer Privacy Rights, Stanley A. Marciniak Iii

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cyber-Security, Privacy, And The Covid-19 Attenuation?, Vincent J. Samar

Journal of Legislation

Large-scale data brokers collect massive amounts of highly personal consumer information to be sold to whoever will pay their price, even at the expense of sacrificing individual privacy and autonomy in the process. In this Article, I will show how a proper understanding and justification for a right to privacy, in context to both protecting private acts and safeguarding information and states of affairs for the performance of such acts, provides a necessary background framework for imposing legal restrictions on such collections. This problem, which has already gained some attention in literature, now becomes even more worrisome, as government itself …

The Future Of Our Fingerprints: The Importance Of Instituting Biometric Data Protections In Pennsylvania, Julia M. Siracuse

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.

Piercing The Veil: Reconciling Fisa And The State Secrets Privilege In The Schrems Ii Era, Chris Baumohl

American University Law Review

Twenty years after 9/11 and the beginning of the “War on Terror,” access to judicial redress arising out of national security programs remains mired in a labyrinth of procedural hurdles, including the state secrets privilege. Nearly seventy years after the Supreme Court first enunciated the modern state secrets privilege, courts still struggle to articulate a practicable standard that appropriately balances the government’s need to protect its secrets and plaintiffs’ need to vindicate their constitutional rights. This issue is particularly acute in surveillance litigation, where broad construction of the privilege precludes plaintiffs from establishing standing. However, as the Ninth Circuit found …

Why Get A Warrant When You Can Fly Over The Wall? The Constitutionality Of Aerial Surveillance Without A Warrant, Royce A. Deller

New Mexico Law Review

Individuals in and around their home have a reasonable expectation of privacy from warrantless, ground-level surveillance because the curtilage of the home, like the home itself, is protected from searches and seizures. This is settled Fourth Amendment law. The curtilage of a home is “the area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the ‘sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life.’” Less clear, however, is whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy from aerial surveillance. One would be forgiven for assuming one enjoys an expectation of privacy from surveillance in the curtilage of one’s own …

Submission To The Toronto Police Services Board’S Use Of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy- Leaf And The Citizen Lab, Suzie Dunn, Kristen Mj Thomasen, Kate Robertson, Pam Hrick, Cynthia Khoo, Rosel Kim, Ngozi Okidegbe, Christopher Parsons

Reports & Public Policy Documents

We write as a group of experts in the legal regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), technology-facilitated violence, equality, and the use of AI systems by law enforcement in Canada. We have experience working within academia and legal practice, and are affiliated with LEAF and the Citizen Lab who support this letter.

We reviewed the Toronto Police Services Board Use of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy and provide comments and recommendations focused on the following key observations:

1. Police use of AI technologies must not be seen as inevitable
2. A commitment to protecting equality and human rights must be integrated …

Privacy In Pandemic: Law, Technology, And Public Health In The Covid-19 Crisis, Tiffany C. Li

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths and disastrous consequences around the world, with lasting repercussions for every field of law, including privacy and technology. The unique characteristics of this pandemic have precipitated an increase in use of new technologies, including remote communications platforms, healthcare robots, and medical AI. Public and private actors alike are using new technologies, like heat sensing, and technologically influenced programs, like contact tracing, leading to a rise in government and corporate surveillance in sectors like healthcare, employment, education, and commerce. Advocates have raised the alarm for privacy and civil liberties violations, but the emergency …

"Times They Are A Changin'" - Can The Ad Tech Industry Survive In A Privacy Conscious World?, Meaghan Donahue

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The "ad tech ecosystem" is a web of interconnected technologies and intermediaries that facilitate targeted advertising based on consumer data, and supports the free internet while providing users with promotional content relevant to their interests. However, in recent years, lawmakers and consumer advocates have highlighted the dangers associated with the unregulated use of consumer data for advertising purposes, prompting a flurry of legislative action at both the state and federal levels. These various laws and proposed bills impose new challenges on the ad tech industry--threatening to fundamentally change the way the business operates. However, through innovation and creative thinking, the …

Just Plain Dumb?: How Digital Contact Tracing Apps Could’Ve Worked Better (And Why They Never Got The Chance), Brian E. Ray

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This essay describes how the privacy debate that emerged over digital contact tracing and Google’s and Apple’s decisions to strictly limit apps permitted to use their platforms resulted in undercutting their potential usefulness as a tool to combat the pandemic while still failing to engender trust in these tools as intended.

Ad Tech & The Future Of Legal Ethics, Seth Katsuya Endo

UF Law Faculty Publications

Privacy scholars have extensively studied online behavioral advertising, which uses Big Data to target individuals based on their characteristics and behaviors. This literature identifies several new risks presented by online behavioral advertising and theorizes about how consumer protection law should respond. A new wave of this scholarship contemplates applying fiduciary duties to information-collecting entities like Facebook and Google.

Meanwhile, lawyers—quintessential fiduciaries—already use online behavioral advertising to find clients. For example, a medical malpractice firm directs its advertising to Facebook users who are near nursing homes with bad reviews. And, in 2020, New York became the first jurisdiction to approve lawyers’ …

Privacy-As-Property: A New Fundamental Approach To The Right To Privacy And The Impact This Will Have On The Law And Corporations, Sevion Dacosta

CMC Senior Theses

The most popular conception of the right to privacy stems from Warren and Brandeis’s description of privacy as “the right to be left alone.” This theory ultimately points to a more fundamental approach to the right to privacy rooted in property rights. This fundamental approach - which I call privacy-as-property - is what I establish in this paper. I argue that the Lockean concept of property that “every man has a property in his own person” provides the foundation for the right to privacy. Privacy-as-property begins with the fundamental right to control oneself. Because of this intrinsic right, your property …

Two Constitutional Rights, Two Constitutional Controversies, Michael J. Perry

Faculty Articles

My overarching aim in the Article is to defend a particular understanding of two constitutional rights and, relatedly, a particular resolution of two constitutional controversies. The two rights I discuss are among the most important rights protected by the constitutional law of the United States: the right to equal protection and the right of privacy. As I explain in the Article, the constitutional right to equal protection is, at its core, the human right to moral equality, and the constitutional right to privacy is best understood as a version of the human right to moral freedom. The two controversies I …

Privacy Beyond Possession: Solving The Access Conundrum In Digital Dollars, Nerenda N. Atako

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The advent of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) could reshape the US payments system. A retail CBDC would be a digital representation of the US dollar in the form of an account or token that is widely accessible to the general public. It would be a third form of US fiat money that is created and issued by the Federal Reserve and complementary to physical cash. CBDC proposals have suggested a myriad of retail CBDC design models with an overwhelming interest in a retail CBDC that either implements a centralized ledger system or some form of a distributed …

Regulating Data Breaches: A Data Superfund Statute, Kyle Mckibbin

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Collecting and processing large amounts of personal data has become a fundamental feature of the modern economy. Personal data, combined with good data analytics, are valuable to businesses as they can provide highly detailed information about individual preferences and behaviors. This data collection can also be valuable to the consumer as it generates innovative products and digital platforms. The era of big data promises great rewards, but it is not without its costs. Data breaches, or the release of personal data into unwanted hands, are pervasive and increasingly massive in scale. Despite the personal privacy harm caused by data breaches, …

Legal Opacity: Artificial Intelligence’S Sticky Wicket, Charlotte A. Tschider

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Proponents of artificial intelligence (“AI”) transparency have carefully illustrated the many ways in which transparency may be beneficial to prevent safety and unfairness issues, to promote innovation, and to effectively provide recovery or support due process in lawsuits. However, impediments to transparency goals, described as opacity, or the “black-box” nature of AI, present significant issues for promoting these goals.

An undertheorized perspective on opacity is legal opacity, where competitive, and often discretionary legal choices, coupled with regulatory barriers create opacity. Although legal opacity does not specifically affect AI only, the combination of technical opacity in AI systems with legal opacity …

Ai's Legitimate Interest: Towards A Public Benefit Privacy Model, Charlotte A. Tschider

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Health data uses are on the rise. Increasingly more often, data are used for a variety of operational, diagnostic, and technical uses, as in the Internet of Health Things. Never has quality data been more necessary: large data stores now power the most advanced artificial intelligence applications, applications that may enable early diagnosis of chronic diseases and enable personalized medical treatment. These data, both personally identifiable and de-identified, have the potential to dramatically improve the quality, effectiveness, and safety of artificial intelligence.

Existing privacy laws do not 1) effectively protect the privacy interests of individuals and 2) provide the flexibility …

Meaningful Choice: A History Of Consent And Alternatives To The Consent Myth, Charlotte A. Tschider

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Although the first legal conceptions of commercial privacy were identified in Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis’s foundational 1890 article, The Right to Privacy, conceptually, privacy has existed since as early as 1127 as a natural concern when navigating between personal and commercial spheres of life. As an extension of contract and tort law, two common relational legal models, U.S. privacy law emerged to buoy engagement in commercial enterprise, borrowing known legal conventions like consent and assent. Historically, however, international legal privacy frameworks involving consent ultimately diverged, with the European Union taking a more expansive view of legal justification for processing …

Balancing Public Health And Privacy: Lessons From Digital Contact Tracing For Covid-19 Vaccination Tracking Efforts, Carmel Shachar

Saint Louis University Law Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic has brough the tension between individual privacy and public health initiative to the fore, in part because many of the solutions to the challenges of the pandemic proposed are digital. The first year of the pandemic has revealed that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is both too restrictive of traditional public health activities but also underprotective of important categories of health data. The failure of digital contact tracing applications to make a difference in combatting the pandemic during its early stages also illustrates the tension between individual privacy and public health surveillance. In order to …

Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act Litigation In Federal Courts: Evaluating The Standing Doctrine In Privacy Contexts, Michael Mcmahon

Saint Louis University Law Journal

Biometric technology, used to identify individuals based on their unchangeable and unique attributes such as fingerprints or facial geometry, has become commonplace in modern life. In Illinois, the use of biometric information by private organizations is regulated by the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (“BIPA”), which came into effect in 2008 as the nation’s first state biometric information privacy statute. BIPA is unique in that it includes a private right of action and provides for recovery of liquidated damages where the statute is violated, which has resulted in plaintiffs bringing steadily increasing numbers of class-action suits under the law. This note …

Law Library Blog (January 2021): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Data As The New Oil: A Slippery Slope Of Trade Secret Implications Greased By The California Consumer Privacy Act, Megan Marie Miller

Cybaris®

Following the European model of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the state of California implemented the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) on January 1, 2020. The CCPA allows any California consumer to demand to see all of the information that a company has saved on them; consumers can also request a full list of all the third parties that their data is shared with, sold to, and for what commercial purpose. This paper reviews the implications of a new law on the disclosure of trade secrets like client lists and algorithms that manipulate consumers’ data. Ultimately, the issue comes …