Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

People Analytics And The Regulation Of Information Under The Fair Credit Reporting Act, Pauline Kim, Erika Hanson

Scholarship@WashULaw

People analytics — the use of big data and computer algorithms to make personnel decisions — has been drawing increasing public and scholarly scrutiny. Concerns have been raised that the data collection intrudes on individual privacy, and that algorithms can produce unfair or discriminatory results. This symposium contribution considers whether the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s regulation of consumer information used for employment purposes can respond these concerns. The FCRA establishes certain procedural requirements, and these can sometimes help individual workers challenge inaccurate information about them. However, the statute does little to curb intrusive data collection practices or to address the …

Trending @ Rwulaw: Professor Peter Margulies's Post: Cybersecurity: A 'Must-Know' For Lawyers And Citizens, Peter Margulies

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Sacrificing Privacy For Convenience: The Need For Stricter Ftc Regulations In An Age Of Smartphone Surveillance, Ashton Mckinnon

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This comment aims to focus on the most frequently used connector that consumers treasure not only for convenience but also as a lifelong necessity - the smartphone. The FTC needs to enforce federally mandated guidelines that will allow the consumer to use technology without the technology using the consumer. Part II of this comment focuses on the type of information that can be collected by various companies, service providers, and agencies from an individual's smartphone, and the intentions of these collectors behind use of this information. Part III evaluates how applications (apps) contribute to this scheme, and, specifically, apps' recordkeeping …

Reforming The Law Of Reputation, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

Unfair and deceptive practices of controllers and processors of data have adversely affected many citizens. New threats to individuals’ reputations have seriously undermined the efficacy of extant regulation concerning health privacy, credit reporting, and expungement. The common thread is automated, algorithmic arrangements of information, which could render data properly removed or obscured in one records system, nevertheless highly visible or dominant in other, more important ones.

As policymakers reform the law of reputation, they should closely consult European approaches to what is now called the “right to be forgotten.” Health privacy law, credit reporting, and criminal conviction expungement need to …

Selected State Laws Governing The Safeguarding And Disposing Of Personal Information, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 487 (2015), Bruce Radke, Michael Waters

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

Numerous states have adopted laws mandating the protection and disposal of personal information. Under those laws, businesses are required to implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature of the information in order to protect the personal information from unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure. Although the definition of “personal information” varies from state to state, “personal information” is generally defined as an individual’s first name or initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements, when either the name or the data elements are not encrypted or …

Legal Problems In Data Management: Ethics Of Big Data Analytics And The Importance Of Disclosure, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 641 (2015)

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

‘The Greatest Wealth Is Health’: Patient Protected Health Information In The Hands Of Hackers, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 657 (2015), Samantha Singer

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

This comment will analyze the specific requirements and stages that EPs/EHs must comply with in order to receive its Medicare and Medicaid incentives, how EHR technologies are being implemented, how EHR technologies are affecting patients' privacy with regard to hacking a patient‟s PHI, and what EHR technology vendors and EPs/EHs should be doing to improve patient privacy and security to prevent hacking and other breaches.

Part I of this comment will address hacking of PHI. Part II will analyze the security measures that EHR vendors must currently incorporate into EHR technology and how the lack of required security measures impacts …

Industry Self-Regulation Of Consumer Data Privacy And Security, 32 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 15 (2015), Siona Listokin

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

Industry self-regulation of consumer data privacy and security has been proposed as a flexible alternative and compliment to traditional government regulation. This study analyzes whether different types of existing industry-led standards improve online privacy and security. This paper examines which types of firms join voluntary standards and whether there is a difference in outcomes between trade association memberships (like the Digital Advertising Alliance) and certification programs (like TRUSTe). Results suggest that more trafficked websites are more likely to adopt standards, and that trade association member-ship does not have an effect on privacy and security performance. This article highlights the need …

The Truth Behind Data Collection And Analysis, 32 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 33 (2015), Morgan Hochheiser

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

Environmental Privacy, Katrina Fischer Kuh

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article looks to nuisance doctrine, surveillance under environmental statutes, and Fourth Amendment cases arising in implementation of fish and game laws (the hunter enforcement cases) to better understand our experience, to date, balancing the need for environmental information with privacy. Section A analyzes common law nuisance and its relationship to individual privacy concerns and concludes that the law affords little *7 value to or protection of privacy in the context of at least one type of environmental externality -- conduct that gives rise to a common law nuisance. Recognizing that most environmentally significant individual behaviors do not constitute a …

Consumer Cloud Robotics And The Fair Information Practice Principles: Recognizing The Challenges And Opportunities Ahead, Andrew Proia, Drew Simshaw, Kris Hauser

Scholarly Works

Rapid technological innovation has made commercially accessible consumer robotics a reality. At the same time, individuals and organizations are turning to "the cloud" for more convenient and cost-effective data storage and management. It seemed only inevitable that these two technologies would merge to create cloud robotics, "a new approach to robotics that takes advantage of the Internet as a resource for massively parallel computation and sharing of vast data resources." By making robots lighter, cheaper, and more efficient, cloud robotics could be the catalyst for a mainstream consumer robotics marketplace. However, this new industry would join a host of modern …

Robots In The Home: What Will We Have Agreed To?, Margot E. Kaminski

Publications

A new technology can expose the cracks in legal doctrine. Sometimes a technology resists analogy. Sometimes, through analogies, it reveals inconsistencies in the law, or basic flaws in framing, or in the fit between different parts of the legal system. This Essay addresses robots in the home, and what they reveal about U.S. privacy law. Household robots might not themselves uproot U.S. privacy law, but they will reveal its inconsistencies, and show where it is most likely to fracture. Just as drones are serving as a legislative “privacy catalyst” — encouraging the enactment of new privacy laws as people realize …

Information Privacy Law Scholars' Brief In Spokeo, Inc. V. Robins, Neil M. Richards, Julie E. Cohen, Chris Jay Hoofnagle, William Mcgeveran, Paul Ohm, Joel R. Reidenberg, David Thaw, Lauren E. Willis

Scholarship@WashULaw

This brief, submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States by 15 information privacy law scholars in the case of Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (No 13-1339), argues that in enacting the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Congress crafted a bargain between aggressive, secretive data-aggregating businesses and the public: if those businesses limited disclosures and made reasonable efforts to adhere to practices ensuring “maximum possible accuracy,” they would enjoy a safe harbor from litigation under many other state and federal theories. The FCRA’s consumer transparency requirements and remedial provisions were designed to encourage steady improvement in consumer reporting practices and …

Protecting Health Privacy In An Era Of Big Data Processing And Cloud Computing, Frank A. Pasquale, Tara Adams Ragone

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines how new technologies generate privacy challenges for both healthcare providers and patients, and how American health privacy laws may be interpreted or amended to address these challenges. Given the current implementation of Meaningful Use rules for health information technology and the Omnibus HIPAA Rule in health care generally, the stage is now set for a distinctive law of “health information” to emerge. HIPAA has come of age of late, with more aggressive enforcement efforts targeting wayward healthcare providers and entities. Nevertheless, more needs to be done to assure that health privacy and all the values it is …

Now You See It, Now You Don’T . . . Or Do You?: Snapchat’S Deceptive Promotion Of Vanishing Messages Violates Federal Trade Commission Regulations, 30 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 827 (2014), Danielle Young

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

This Comment will explore the recently popular application Snapchat, and discuss the ways in which the app's privacy policy has violated FTC regulations, responding to a recent complaint filed by The Electronic Privacy Center. Particularly, this Comment will focus on Snapchat's deceptive promotion of "disappearing" photographs and videos. Section II will illustrate the basic structure of Snapchat, detailing various illustrations of its use. Section II will also examine the regulations set forth by the FTC that Snapchat is required to follow. Section III will discuss possible methods that the average user can do in order to bypass the very thing …

Canada’S Anti-Spam Legislation: A Constitutional Analysis, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 1 (2014), Emir Crowne, Stephanie Provato

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

On December 15th, 2010, the Government of Canada agreed to Bill C-28, the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, with the intent to “deter the most damaging and deceptive forms of spam… from occurring in Canada and to help to drive out spammers.” Canada‟s Anti- Spam Legislation (“CASL”) was born. Although CASL has only been in force since July 1st, 2014, we argue that the Act may not survive constitutional scrutiny as it unduly restricts freedom of speech.

California’S Eavesdropping Law Endangers Victims Of Domestic Violence, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 57 (2014), John E.B. Myers

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

No abstract provided.

The Right To Be Forgotten: Forced Amnesia In A Technological Age, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 133 (2014), Robert Bolton

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

In the modern era, the connection between technology and one’s personal life has increased the number of moments recorded for posterity. While in many circumstances this is an ideal opportunity for fond recollection, it has the downside of displaying for others our less flattering moments. Because the Internet has such a wide scope, once something has entered its domain, it is virtually impossible to permanently remove. With a public increasingly perceiving this winnowing of privacy as a negative tendency, legislators both at home and abroad have made proposals that attempt to place restrictions on what content social media is allowed …

Facebook Messenger: Eroding User Privacy In Order To Collect, Analyze, And Sell Your Personal Information, 31 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 393 (2014), Erica Jaeger

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

This comment will examine Facebook‘s new standalone Facebook Messenger app, and review how the Privacy Policy, Data Use Policy, and the list of permissions violate Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The comment will focus on Facebook Messenger‘s deceptive methods of accessing users‘ personal information and how Facebook uses that personal information. Section II will explain social networking sites and the configuration of Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Facebook‘ s evolving policies. Section II will also discuss the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Trade Commission Act that was created to protect consumers against unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices.15 …

Maryland's Social Networking Law: No "Friend" To Employers And Employees, Alexander Borman

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Regulating The Internet Of Things: First Steps Toward Managing Discrimination, Privacy, Security, And Consent, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

The consumer "Internet of Things" is suddenly reality, not science fiction. Electronic sensors are now ubiquitous in our smartphones, cars, homes, electric systems, health-care devices, fitness monitors, and workplaces. These connected, sensor-based devices create new types and unprecedented quantities of detailed, high-quality information about our everyday actions, habits, personalities, and preferences. Much of this undoubtedly increases social welfare. For example, insurers can price automobile coverage more accurately by using sensors to measure exactly how you drive (e.g., Progressive 's Snapshot system), which should theoretically lower the overall cost of insurance. But the Internet of Things raises new and difficult questions …

Watching The Watchers, Neil M. Richards

Scholarship@WashULaw

In this essay from Wired Magazine (UK)'s special edition, The Wired World in 2014, Prof. Richards argues that sousveillance–watching the watchers–is an important development that will be on the rise in 2014.

Stymieing Controversy Over Generic Top-Level Domains (Gtlds) And Other Internet Governance Decisions With Content Neutrality, Nafees Uddin

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Undersigned Attorney Hereby Certifies -- The Washington Supreme Court Rule On Standards And Its Implications, Justice Sheryl Gordon Mccloud, Justice Susan Owens, Marc Boman, Joanne Moore

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

G Forces: Gideon V. Wainwright And Matthew Adler's Move Beyond Cost-Benefit Analysis, Janet Moore

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Dark Medicine: How The National Research Act Has Failed To Address Racist Practices In Biomedical Experiments Targeting The African-American Community, Anietie Maureen-Ann Akpan

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Do We Have It Right This Time? An Analysis Of The Accomplishments And Shortcomings Of Washington's Indian Child Welfare Act, Karen Gray Young

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Securing Food Justice, Sovereignty & Sustainability In The Face Of The Food Safety Modernization Act (Fsma), Eve Kerber

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Driving While License Suspended - Third Degree, A Framework For Requesting Alternative Sentences, Sahar Fathi

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

About The Authors

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.