Privacy Law Commons^™

When Ai Remembers Too Much: Reinventing The Right To Be Forgotten For The Generative Age, Cheng-Chi Chang

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems poses novel challenges for the right to be forgotten. While this right gained prominence following the 2014 Google Spain v. Gonzalez case, generative AI’s limitless memory and ability to reproduce identifiable data from fragments threaten traditional conceptions of forgetting. This Article traces the evolution of the right to be forgotten from its privacy law origins towards an independent entitlement grounded in self-determination for personal information. However, it contends the inherent limitations of using current anonymization, deletion, and geographical blocking mechanisms to prevent AI models from retaining personal data render forgetting infeasible. Moreover, …

What You Don’T Know Will Hurt You: Fighting The Privacy Paradox By Designing For Privacy And Enforcing Protective Technology, Perla Khattar

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

The persistence of the privacy paradox is proof that current industry regulation is insufficient to protect consumer’s privacy. Although consumer choice is essential, we argue that it should not be the main pillar of modern data privacy legislation. This article argues that legislation should aim to protect consumer’s personal data in the first place, while also giving internet users the choice to opt-in to the processing of their information. Ideally, privacy by design principles would be mandated by law, making privacy an essential component of the architecture of every tech-product and service.

U.S.-U.K. Executive Agreement: Case Study Of Incidental Collection Of Data Under The Cloud Act, Eddie B. Kim

Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts

In March 2018, Congress passed the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, also known as the CLOUD Act, in order to expedite the process of cross-border data transfers for the purposes of criminal investigations. The U.S. government entered into its first Executive Agreement, the main tool to achieve the goals of the statute, with the United Kingdom in October 2019. While the CLOUD Act requires the U.S. Attorney General to consider whether the foreign government counterpart has a certain level of robust data privacy laws, the relevant laws of the United Kingdom have generally been questioned numerous times for …

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 …

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 …

People Can Be So Fake: A New Dimension To Privacy And Technology Scholarship, M. Ryan Calo

Articles

This article updates the traditional discussion of privacy and technology, focused since the days of Warren and Brandeis on the capacity of technology to manipulate information. It proposes a novel dimension to the impact of anthropomorphic or social design on privacy.

Technologies designed to imitate people-through voice, animation, and natural language-are increasingly commonplace, showing up in our cars, computers, phones, and homes. A rich literature in communications and psychology suggests that we are hardwired to react to such technology as though a person were actually present.

Social interfaces accordingly capture our attention, improve interactivity, and can free up our hands …