Privacy Law Commons^™

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Limits And Possibilities Of Data-Driven Antitrafficking Efforts, Jennifer Musto Ph.D.

Georgia State University Law Review

An examination of technology in the countertrafficking space reveals recurring tensions between law enforcement and rights-based approaches. It also illuminates assumptions, such as the one that posits more law enforcement-focused, nonstate-actor-supported data-driven efforts are necessary to securing justice for people in trafficking situations. However, a closer look at how technology is used and by whom also invites us to ask different questions and to leverage the power of our all-too-human creative potential in thinking about how to value and prioritize data ethics, transparency, and accountability in future countertrafficking work.

Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Books

The COVID-19 crisis has ended and upended lives around the globe. In addition to killing over 160,000 people, more than 35,000 in the United States alone, its secondary effects have been as devastating. These secondary effects pose fundamental challenges to the rules that govern our social, political, and economic lives. These rules are the domain of lawyers. Law in the Time of COVID-19 is the product of a joint effort by members of the faculty of Columbia Law School and several law professors from other schools.

This volume offers guidance for thinking about some the most pressing legal issues the …

Race, Surveillance, Resistance, Chaz Arnett

Faculty Scholarship

The increasing capability of surveillance technology in the hands of law enforcement is radically changing the power, size, and depth of the surveillance state. More daily activities are being captured and scrutinized, larger quantities of personal and biometric data are being extracted and analyzed, in what is becoming a deeply intensified and pervasive surveillance society. This reality is particularly troubling for Black communities, as they shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden and harm associated with these powerful surveillance measures, at a time when traditional mechanisms for accountability have grown weaker. These harms include the maintenance of legacies of state …

Open Record Laws: Balancing The "Right To Know" With The Safety Of Reproductive Health Care Service Providers, Rebecca Bentley

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

In A World Of "Fake News," What's A Social Media Platform To Do?, Evelyn Aswad

Faculty Articles

While the circulation of disinformation and misinformation online can pose a variety of risks to societies around the world, it should also be of concern that overreacting to such false information can undermine human rights, including freedom of expression. The business operations of global social media platforms frequently intersect with this latter concern because of a spike in the adoption of national laws that ban “fake news” as well as their own platform policies to tackle false information. This Essay assesses the corporate responsibility standards afforded by the United Nations’ Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights as well as …

Losing The Freedom To Be Human, Evelyn Aswad

Faculty Articles

In 2019, Apple’s CEO warned that contemporary business models, which are based on harvesting our personal data and monetizing everything we do online, violate our privacy and will eventually cause us “to lose the freedom to be human.” Others have taken this privacy concern a step further by questioning whether these business models undermine mental autonomy, i.e., the ability to think and form opinions. The burgeoning chorus of concerns has triggered a variety of high-profile calls to explore whether international human rights law protects against intrusions on the inner sanctum of one’s mind, particularly with respect to the business models …

Politics Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Jonathon Penney, Bruce Schneier, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In addition to their security properties, adversarial machine-learning attacks and defenses have political dimensions. They enable or foreclose certain options for both the subjects of the machine learning systems and for those who deploy them, creating risks for civil liberties and human rights. In this paper, we draw on insights from science and technology studies, anthropology, and human rights literature, to inform how defenses against adversarial attacks can be used to suppress dissent and limit attempts to investigate machine learning systems. To make this concrete, we use real-world examples of how attacks such as perturbation, model inversion, or membership inference …

Identity Manipulation: Responding To Advances In Artificial Intelligence And Robotics, Suzie Dunn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technologies have destabilized our ability to control our identity. Today, it is increasingly accessible for the average person to appropriate the voice, image, and body of another individual through the use of technology. Deepfake videos swap new faces into existing videos, facial re-enactment allows for the face of one person to be superimposed on the face of someone else in a real time video, artificial speech synthesis can clone another person’s voice, and 3D printing and modern robotics can reproduce life-size copies of living people. These are all examples of the ways technology …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Privacidad Digital En Ecuador: El Papel De La Vigilancia, La Jurisprudencia Y Los Derechos Humanos, Giselle Valdez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este documento es un estudio de caso sobre la privacidad digital en Ecuador, cómo se protege y cómo se debe mejorar las protecciones. Comienzo presentando la falta de privacidad de la persona en Ecuador, a través de la reciente violación de datos y las tecnologías de vigilancia en todo el país desde China. Luego, para analizar la jurisprudencia y la falta de protección de la privacidad en la ley, hago la transición a un análisis legal de la privacidad de datos en Ecuador a través de la Constitución de 2008. Cuando establezco que falta privacidad digital en Ecuador, demuestro una …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Need For A Shared Responsibility Regime Between State And Non-State Actors To Prevent Human Rights Violations Caused By Cyber-Surveillance Spyware, Anna W. Chan

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Technology has undoubtedly contributed to the field of human rights. Internet connection and a smartphone has enabled activists to call out political leaders, shine light on human atrocities and organize mass protests through social media platforms. This has resulted in many authoritarian governments spending large amounts of their resources to purchase cyber-surveillance spyware systems from multi-national corporations to closely monitor and track their citizens for any signs of dissidence. Such technology has enabled authoritarian regimes to commit human right violations ranging from invasion of privacy, arbitrary arrest, arbitrary detention, torture and even murder. Despite the uncovering of such questionable transactions …

Bytes Bite: Why Corporate Data Breaches Should Give Standing To Affected Individuals, Caden Hayes

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

High-profile data hacks are not uncommon. In fact, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, there have been at least 7,961 data breaches, exposing over 10,000,000,000 accounts in total, since 2005. These shocking numbers are not particularly surprising when taking into account the value of information stolen. For example, cell phone numbers, as exposed in a Yahoo! hack, are worth $10 a piece on the black market, meaning the hackers stood to make $30,000,000,000 from that one hack. That dollar amount does not even consider copies the hackers could make and later resell. Yet while these hackers make astronomical payoffs, the …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Social Media: An Expert Panel Discussion, Howard M. Squadron Program In Law, Media And Society, Bonavero Institute Of Human Rights, Cardozo Law Moot Court Honor Society

2018–2019 Flyers

This expert panel discussion, moderated by Professor Monroe Price, explored the evolving challenges and regulatory efforts related to social media. Held on Thursday, January 31st, from 6–8pm in the Moot Court Room at Cardozo School of Law, the event addressed pressing issues such as child pornography, cyberstalking, hate speech, terrorist content, and the impact of social media on U.S. elections. Panelists included Robyn Caplan (Data and Society), Jessa Lingel (University of Pennsylvania), and Cardozo Professor Felix Wu, whose work focuses on freedom of expression and cybersecurity. Presented by the Howard M. Squadron Program in Law, Media and Society in partnership …

An Information Operations Theory Of Domestic Counterterrorism Efforts, Tung Yin

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Law Frees Us To Speak, Jonathon Penney, Danielle Citron

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

A central aim of online abuse is to silence victims. That effort is as regrettable as it is successful. In the face of cyber harassment and sexual privacy invasions, women and marginalized groups retreat from online engagement. These documented chilling effects, however, are not inevitable. Beyond its deterrent function, law has an equally important expressive role. In this article, we highlight law’s capacity to shape social norms and behavior through education. We focus on a neglected dimension of law’s expressive role—its capacity to empower victims to express their truths and engage with others. Our argument is theoretical and empirical. We …

Privacy And Legal Automation: The Dmca As A Case Study, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, computing capacity, and big data analytics are creating exciting new possibilities for legal automation. At the same time, these changes pose serious risks for civil liberties and other societal interests. Yet, existing scholarship is narrow, leaving uncertainty on a range of issues, including a glaring lack of systematic empirical work as to how legal automation may impact people’s privacy and freedom. This article addresses this gap with an original empirical analysis of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which today sits at the forefront of algorithmic law due to its automated enforcement of copyright …

Identities In Critical Condition: The Urgent Need To Reevaluate The Investigation And Resolution Of Claims Of Medical Identity Theft, Stephanie Lindgren

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Warrantless Searches Of Electronic Devices At U.S. Borders: Securing The Nation Or Violating Digital Liberty?, Ahad Khilji

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The steady increase of U.S. citizens traveling with smart phones and other electronic devices has been met with the rise of searches and seizures by CBP officers at U.S borders. Although only less than 0.1% of all travelers may actually be subjected to a search while entering the United States, when comparing the statistics between a six month period in 2016 with the same period in 2017, electronic device searches have almost doubled from 8,383 to 14,993. Approximately one million travelers to the U.S. are inspected by the CBP every day. Out of this population, nearly 2,500 electronic devices are …

Right To Privacy, A Complicated Concept To Review, Ali Alibeigi, Abu Bakar Munir, Md Ershadul Karim

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The Concept and definition of the privacy has been changed during the time affecting by different factors. At the same time, the boundaries of privacy may differ from one place to another affecting by the culture, religion, etc. Nonetheless, there is not a unique general accepted definition for the privacy. Privacy has been considered from different disciplines like sociology, psychology, law and philosophy. It is a multidisciplinary domain, having an easy concept but difficult to define. However, by reviewing all different viewpoints, it can be concluded that privacy is an individual tendency, wish and natural need to be away from …

Things Invisible To See: State Action & Private Property, Joseph William Singer, Isaac Saidel-Goley

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article revisits the state action doctrine, a judicial invention that shields “private” or “non-governmental” discrimination from constitutional scrutiny. Traditionally, this doctrine has applied to discrimination even in places of public accommodation, like restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores. Born of overt racial discrimination, the doctrine has inflicted substantial injustice throughout its inglorious history, and courts have continuously struggled in vain to coherently apply the doctrine. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has not fully insulated “private” or “horizontal” relations among persons from constitutional scrutiny. The cases in which it has applied constitutional norms to non-governmental actors should be celebrated rather …

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Pregnant: The Jurisprudence Of Abortion Exceptionalism In Garza V. Hargan, Kaytlin L. Roholt

Texas A&M Law Review

Since a majority of Supreme Court justices created the abortion right in 1973, a troubling pattern has emerged: The Supreme Court has come to ignore—and even nullify—longstanding precedent and legal doctrines in the name of preserving and expanding the abortion right. And with a Supreme Court majority that is blithe to manipulate any doctrine or principle—no matter how deeply rooted in U.S. legal tradition—in the name of expansive abortion rights, it should come as no surprise that lower courts are following suit. Most recently, the D.C. Circuit fired up the “ad hoc nullification machine,” but this time, its victim of …

Information And The Regulatory Landscape: A Growing Need To Reconsider Existing Legal Frameworks, Anjanette H. Raymond

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Advancing Human Rights-By-Design In The Dual-Use Technology Industry, Jonathon Penney, Sarah Mckune, Lex Gill, Ronald Deibert

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

It is no secret that technology companies have greased the wheels for human rights abuses around the world — backed by a global web of private sector support and investment that has yielded significant financial returns. For example, the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab recently published research analyzing the use of Internet filtering technology developed by Canadian company Netsweeper in ten countries globally — Afghanistan, Bahrain, India, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen — and concluded these uses likely violated international human rights law. Products like Netsweeper’s Internet filtering systems are often referred to as "dual …

More Than 'Revenge Porn' Civil Remedies For The Nonconsensual Distribution Of Intimate Images, Suzie Dunn, Alessia Petricone-Westwood

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The non-consensual distribution of intimate images, or “revenge porn” as it is colloquially known, is a growing phenomenon in the digital era that has devastated the lives of countless individuals. Targets of this conduct have suffered both short and long-lasting harms that have had serious repercussions on their mental health, physical well-being, and safety. Once their intimate images have been shared without their consent, they can face damage to their personal and professional reputations. There are reported cases where individuals have lost their jobs, have had to relocate, were stalked and harassed, experienced some form of emotional trauma, and had …

Victims And Press After War: Tensions Between Privacy, Historical Truth And Freedom Of Expression, Vivian Newman-Pont, Maria P. Angel, Maria Ximena Davila

Scholarly Works

The drive to conduct this research was born out of the tension that developed on May of 2017 in the context of the journalistic coverage of the exhumations of those who died in the Bojayá massacre.   Thus, this document has the purpose of asking and answering, from a socio-legal perspective, the following question: How can the events related to the armed conflict and to the transition to peace be narrated without violating the right to privacy of the victims? Or, how can a journalist record a dramatic event or recount an injuste that moves readers while respecting the limits of …