Privacy Law Commons^™

In Celebration Of Dissents (And Lengthy Textbooks): How Digital Became Different For The Fourth Amendment And Why It Is Time For A Real Warrant Default, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

The last decade has brought tremendous change to the Fourth Amendment, finally resulting in a ‘digital is different’ norm. We stand at an inflection point between a monolithic, analog past and a murky future of yet-unarticulated constitutional digital policing rules. It is a good time, then, to reflect upon how we came to be here and where we ought to go. This Essay first looks back to a monumental, majestic dissent: that of Justice Louis Brandeis in the 1928 decision of Olmstead v. United States. Every American, and especially every law student, ought to know that opinion, and judges …

Smart Meters As A Catalyst For Privacy Law, Matthew Tokson

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Smart utility meters raise several puzzling legal questions—and answering them can help point the way toward the future of Fourth Amendment and civil privacy law. This forum essay addresses two such issues: use restrictions on collected data, and voluntary data disclosure.

First, more than any other current technology, smart meters compel the development of use restrictions on collected data. The benefits of smart meters are potentially enormous, such that categorically prohibiting public utilities from collecting smart meter data is likely beyond the pale. Yet allowing law enforcement agents to obtain detailed or intimate data about the home without a warrant …

Understanding Chilling Effects, Jonathon Penney

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

With digital surveillance and censorship on the rise, the amount of data available online unprecedented, and corporate and governmental actors increasingly employing emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and facial recognition technology (FRT) for surveillance and data analytics, concerns about “chilling effects”, that is, the capacity for these activities “chill” or deter people from exercising their rights and freedoms have taken on greater urgency and importance. Yet, there remains a clear dearth in systematic theoretical and empirical work point. This has left significant gaps in understanding. This article has attempted to fill that void, synthesizing theoretical and empirical …

A Proportionality-Based Framework For Government Regulation Of Digital Tracing Apps In Times Of Emergency, Sharon Bassan

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Times of emergency present an inherent conflict between the public interest and the preservation of individual rights. Such times require granting emergency powers to the government on behalf of the public interest and relaxing safeguards against government actions that infringe rights. The lack of theoretical framework to assess governmental decisions in times of emergency leads to a polarized and politicized discourse about potential policies, and often, to public distrust and lack of compliance.

Such a discourse was evident regarding Digital Tracing Apps (“DTAs”), which are apps installed on cellular phones to alert users that they were exposed to people who …

Legislating Data Loyalty, Neil M. Richards, Woodrow Hartzog

Scholarship@WashULaw

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, Neil M. Richards, Woodrow Hartzog

Scholarship@WashULaw

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 …

Debunking The Myth That Police Body Cams Are Civil Rights Tool, Scott Skinner-Thompson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Use Of Unmanned Aircraft Systems And Regulatory Landscape: Unravelling The Future Challenges In The High Sky, K Kirthan Shenoy, Divya Tyagi

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The individuals on the ground nowadays often observe objects distantly hover over the sky, which raises the question of who might be operating the object or what the object might record. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) or Drones today have quickly penetrated civilian, military, and commercial sectors. The drones or UAS, with the advancement of technology, are now capable of traversing long distances, having long endurance, and having multipurpose functionality. The UAS industry is fast expanding, with trade investment touching the billion-dollar mark in flourishing economies. The advent of the Covid 19 pandemic saw a steep rise in the use of …

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 …

Fourth Amendment Limits On Extensive Quarantine Surveillance, Benjamin Wolters

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

The devastation wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic spurred innovations in technology and public policy. Many countries rushed to implement extensive quarantines, and some introduced disease surveillance, including location tracking to enforce quarantines. Though the United States has never implemented high-tech quarantine surveillance, such technology will certainly be available for the next disease outbreak.

Absent significant doctrinal change, the Fourth Amendment likely bars some, but not all, forms of quarantine surveillance. Quarantine surveillance probably constitutes a Fourth Amendment “search” that generally must be backed by probable cause. This probable cause requirement, and its subcomponent of individualized suspicion, likely applies differently to …

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 …

Toward Racially Equitable And Accountable Tech, Andrea Giampetro-Meyer, Janae James, Sydney Brooke

Marquette Law Review

This Article examines three distinct areas to consider how we might move

toward racially equitable and accountable tech. The three distinct areas are:

(1) fair housing, (2) surveillance, and (3) social media. Fair housing raises

questions about where today’s racially biased algorithms fit within the context

of historical, racist government housing policy. Surveillance raises questions

about how some tech tools render Black faces invisible, while others render

Black faces dangerously conspicuous. Social media highlights the clash

between civil rights and civil liberties, especially when racial justice conflicts

with freedom of speech. Our analysis leads us to consider the extent to …

A Duty Of Loyalty For Privacy Law, Neil M. Richards, Woodrow Hartzog

Scholarship@WashULaw

Data privacy law fails to stop companies from engaging in self-serving, opportunistic behavior at the expense of those who trust them with their data. This is a problem. Modern tech companies are so entrenched in our lives and have so much control over what we see and click that the self-dealing exploitation of people has become a major element of the internet’s business model.

Academics and policymakers have recently proposed a possible solution: require those entrusted with people’s data and online experiences to be loyal to those who trust them. But many have concerns about a duty of loyalty. What, …

Agonistic Privacy & Equitable Democracy, Scott Skinner-Thompson

Publications

This Essay argues that legal privacy protections—which enable individuals to control their visibility within public space—play a vital role in disrupting the subordinating, antidemocratic impacts of surveillance and should be at the forefront of efforts to reform the operation of both digital and physical public space. Robust privacy protections are a touchstone for empowering members of different marginalized groups with the ability to safely participate in both the physical and digital public squares, while also preserving space for vibrant subaltern counterpublics. By increasing heterogeneity within the public sphere, privacy can also help decrease polarization by breaking down echo chambers and …

A Duty Of Loyalty For Privacy Law, Neil M. Richards, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

Data privacy law fails to stop companies from engaging in self-serving, opportunistic behavior at the expense of those who trust them with their data. This is a problem. Modern tech companies are so entrenched in our lives and have so much control over what we see and click that the self-dealing exploitation of people has become a major element of the internet’s business model.

Academics and policymakers have recently proposed a possible solution: require those entrusted with people’s data and online experiences to be loyal to those who trust them. But many have concerns about a duty of loyalty. What, …

The Case Of The Nosy Neighbors, Johanna Gunawan, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

Inspired by companies like Clearview AI, Nextdoor, and Amazon, this case study asks students to assume the role of a high-ranking ethics-focused employee at a (fictional) neighborhood-focused social media company. It involves challenging ethical questions around how social media services and surveillance tools are built and used, and the complicated relationship between companies, their users, and law enforcement authorities. Students should pay particular attention to the values implicated by certain design decisions, and the competing incentives for corporations that might complicate the picture for ethical decision making.

The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Technology Trust Gap, Johanna Gunawan, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, Christo Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

Industry and government tried to use information technologies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, but using the internet as a tool for disease surveillance, public health messaging, and testing logistics turned out to be a disappointment. Why weren’t these efforts more effective? This Essay argues that industry and government efforts to leverage technology were doomed to fail because tech platforms have failed over the past few decades to make their tools trustworthy, and lawmakers have done little to hold these companies accountable. People cannot trust the interfaces they interact with, the devices they use, and the systems that power tech …

What Is Privacy? That’S The Wrong Question, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

Privacy has never had a precise meaning. But in the early 1900s, the concept took on new life as a term of art in legal frameworks. The result has been a bit of a mess, as no singular definition has been adequate for all purposes. Daniel Solove, perhaps the most influential privacy scholar of our day, wrote at the turn of the millennium that privacy was “a concept in disarray.”

In this short essay reflecting upon Solove’s impact on the modern study of information privacy, I argue that the chaos and futility of competing conceptualizations of privacy is why Solove’s …

Inescapable Surveillance, Matthew Tokson

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Until recently, Supreme Court precedent dictated that a person waives their Fourth Amendment rights in information they disclose to another party. The Court reshaped this doctrine in Carpenter v. United States, establishing that the Fourth Amendment protects cell phone location data even though it is revealed to others. The Court emphasized that consumers had little choice but to disclose their data, because cell phone use is virtually inescapable in modern society.

In the wake of Carpenter, many scholars and lower courts have endorsed inescapability as an important factor for determining Fourth Amendment rights. Under this approach, surveillance that people cannot …

Good Health And Good Privacy Go Hand-In-Hand (Originally Published By Jnslp), Jennifer Daskal

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Submission To The Justice And Electoral Committee On The Search And Surveillance Bill 2009, Samuel Beswick, William Fotherby

All Faculty Publications

This submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee of the New Zealand Parliament addresses the surveillance regime created by the Search and Surveillance Bill 2009.

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

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 AI. Public and private actors are using new technologies, like heat sensing, and technologically-influenced programs, like contact tracing, alike in response, 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 …

A New Compact For Sexual Privacy, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

Intimate life is under constant surveillance. Firms track people’s periods, hot flashes, abortions, sexual assaults, sex toy use, sexual fantasies, and nude photos. Individuals hardly appreciate the extent of the monitoring, and even if they did, little can be done to curtail it. What is big business for firms is a big risk for individuals. The handling of intimate data undermines the values that sexual privacy secures—autonomy, dignity, intimacy, and equality. It can imperil people’s job, housing, insurance, and other crucial opportunities. More often, women and minorities shoulder a disproportionate amount of the burden.

Privacy law is failing us. Our …

Adapting U.S. Electronic Surveillance Laws, Policies, And Practices To Reflect Impending Technological Developments, Eric Manpearl

Catholic University Law Review

Intelligence collection must always evolve to meet technological developments. While the collection programs under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 have produced a great deal of valuable intelligence over the last decade, the United States must begin to think about foreseeable technological developments and strategically consider how to conduct signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection in the future.

This Article identifies four technological trends that could significantly impact the way the United States conducts SIGINT. Individuals now have access to sophisticated technologies that formerly only governments seemed capable of creating, and this decentralization of capabilities will likely only increase …

Cell-Site Location Information And The Privacies Of Life: The Impact Of Carpenter V. United States, Trevor Moore

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ethics, Ai, Mass Data And Pandemic Challenges: Responsible Data Use And Infrastructure Application For Surveillance And Pre-Emptive Tracing Post-Crisis, Mark Findlay, Jia Yuan Loke, Nydia Remolina Leon, Yum Yin, Benjamin (Tan Renyan) Tham

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As the COVID-19 health pandemic rages governments and private companies across the globe are utilising AI-assisted surveillance, reporting, mapping and tracing technologies with the intention of slowing the spread of the virus. These technologies have the capacity to amass personal data and share for community control and citizen safety motivations that empower state agencies and inveigle citizen co-operation which could only be imagined outside such times of real and present danger. While not cavilling with the short-term necessity for these technologies and the data they control, process and share in the health regulation mission, this paper argues that this infrastructure …

Privacy As Safety, A. Michael Froomkin, Zak Colangelo

Washington Law Review

The idea that privacy makes you safer is unjustly neglected: public officials emphasize the dangers of privacy while contemporary privacy theorists acknowledge that privacy may have safety implications but hardly dwell on the point. We argue that this lack of emphasis is a substantive and strategic error and seek to rectify it. This refocusing is particularly timely given the proliferation of new and invasive technologies for the home and for consumer use more generally, not to mention surveillance technologies such as so-called smart cities.

Indeed, we argue—perhaps for the first time in modern conversations about privacy—that in many cases privacy …

Automation In Moderation, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

This Article assesses recent efforts to encourage online platforms to use automated means to prevent the dissemination of unlawful online content before it is ever seen or distributed. As lawmakers in Europe and around the world closely scrutinize platforms’ “content moderation” practices, automation and artificial intelligence appear increasingly attractive options for ridding the Internet of many kinds of harmful online content, including defamation, copyright infringement, and terrorist speech. Proponents of these initiatives suggest that requiring platforms to screen user content using automation will promote healthier online discourse and will aid efforts to limit Big Tech’s power.

In fact, however, the …

Bad Actors: Authenticity, Inauthenticity, Speech, And Capitalism, Sarah C. Haan

Scholarly Articles

“Authenticity” has evolved into an important value that guides social media companies’ regulation of online speech. It is enforced through rules and practices that include real-name policies, Terms of Service requiring users to present only accurate information about themselves, community guidelines that prohibit “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” verification practices, product features, and more.

This Article critically examines authenticity regulation by the social media industry, including companies’ claims that authenticity is a moral virtue, an expressive value, and a pragmatic necessity for online communication. It explains how authenticity regulation provides economic value to companies engaged in “information capitalism,” “data capitalism,” and “surveillance …