Privacy Law Commons^™

Four Privacy Stories And Two Hard Cases, A Comment On Skinner-Thompson's Privacy At The Margins, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

Scott Skinner-Thompson's new book, Privacy at the Margins, is what I would call a "fourth-generation" study of privacy law. Privacy's contours and justifications have been debated over the course of the twentieth century, first to establish it as a matter deserving legal protection (roughly the first half of the twentieth century), ² then to iterate its various common law and constitutional variations (starting in the 1960s), ³ and since the computer and internet revolution of the 1990s, to reevaluate privacy's growing importance but waning presence in the digitally-networked age.⁴ The third-generation of privacy scholarship has been a fast-growing area …

Pov: What Rights Could Unravel Next, In Light Of Draft Opinion By Scotus Overturning Roe V. Wade, Robert L. Tsai

Shorter Faculty Works

Beyond what Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization portends for the future of abortion rights is the striking method of analysis he employs in the reported draft. Despite his many efforts to reassure that the opinion “does not undermine” other constitutional rights “in any way,” it actually outlines a roadmap for the withdrawal of other cherished constitutional rights.

Is The End Of Roe V. Wade Near? Leaked Scotus Brief Says Yes, Nicole Huberfeld, Linda C. Mcclain

Shorter Faculty Works

Protesters on both sides of the abortion debate descended on the US Supreme Court Monday night and into Tuesday after a leaked secret draft of a US Supreme Court opinion indicated that a majority of justices support overturning Roe v. Wade, after almost 50 years of legalized abortion rights in America. If finalized, possibly as soon as this summer, the bombshell could trigger a cultural tsunami across American life, forcing some women to travel to another state for an abortion and putting the divisive issue at the heart of the fall midterm elections.

Privacy Pretexts, Rory Van Loo

Faculty Scholarship

Data privacy’s ethos lies in protecting the individual from institutions. Increasingly, however, institutions are deploying privacy arguments in ways that harm individuals. Platforms like Amazon, Facebook, and Google wall off information from competitors in the name of privacy. Financial institutions under investigation justify withholding files from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by saying they must protect sensitive customer data. In these and other ways, the private sector is exploiting privacy to avoid competition and accountability. This Article highlights the breadth of privacy pretexts and uncovers their moral structure. Like most pretexts, there is an element of truth to the claims. …

Legislating Data Loyalty, Woodrow Hartzog, Neil Richards

Faculty Scholarship

Lawmakers looking to embolden privacy law have begun to consider imposing duties of loyalty on organizations trusted with people’s data and online experiences. The idea behind loyalty is simple: organizations should not process data or design technologies that conflict with the best interests of trusting parties. But the logistics and implementation of data loyalty need to be developed if the concept is going to be capable of moving privacy law beyond its “notice and consent” roots to confront people’s vulnerabilities in their relationship with powerful data collectors.

In this short Essay, we propose a model for legislating data loyalty. Our …

The Surprising Virtues Of Data Loyalty, Woodrow Hartzog, Neil M. Richards

Faculty Scholarship

Lawmakers in the United States and Europe are seriously considering imposing duties of data loyalty that implement ideas from privacy law scholarship, but critics claim such duties are unnecessary, unworkable, overly individualistic, and indeterminately vague. This paper takes those criticisms seriously, and its analysis of them reveals that duties of data loyalty have surprising virtues. Loyalty, it turns out, can support collective well-being by embracing privacy’s relational turn; it can be a powerful state of mind for reenergizing privacy reform; it prioritizes human values rather than potentially empty formalism; and it offers solutions that are flexible and clear rather than …