Privacy Law Commons^™

Redefining Section 230 Immunity, Lucas Dini

Seattle University Law Review

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has provided broad immunity to online platforms for third-party content which was the foundation for the internet's growth. However, the rise in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce algorithms to curate content to users of online services has blurred the line between being a passive host of third party content and active editorial control. This Note examines the legal, policy, and constitutional implications of applying Section 230 immunity to platforms that use AI to curate and promote third-party content. This analysis argues that algorithmic promotion of third-party content constitutes a platform's …

Overcrowding The System: Rethinking Juvenile Justice In Washington State, Mckenna White

Seattle University Law Review

The recent crisis at Green Hill School highlights the detrimental consequences of severe overcrowding in Washington State’s Juvenile Rehabilitation system—a problem exacerbated by the implementation of the JR to 25 legislation. This Note argues that the juvenile rehabilitation system, which is currently struggling to manage a wide age range of offenders, necessitates a fundamental rethinking of juvenile justice practices. By examining neurological research indicating continued brain development into the mid-twenties, along with the high prevalence of trauma among justice-involved youth, this Note proposes the creation of a dedicated third system of care within the Department of Children, Youth, and Families …

Addressing The Root Of Housing Insecurity: Washington Should Divest From “Crime-Free” Housing Programs, Sarah Cerdena

Seattle University Law Review

Crime-Free Rental Housing Properties (CFRHPs) have proven to be an ineffective and inequitable approach to public safety. Often, tenants in these properties are evicted—at times, extrajudicially—as a result of conduct that does not rise to violations of their lease provisions, much less criminal behavior. By placing extraordinary power in the hands of local law enforcement to carry out these ordinances, CFRHPs predictably pose significant harm to Black and Latinx communities, survivors of domestic violence, disabled tenants, and low-income tenants generally. Recently, the Washington State Supreme Court grappled with the tensions arising between CFRHPs and the enforcement of Washington landlord-tenant law. …

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

Esg Investing Breaches Erisa Fiduciary Duties? A Closer Look At Spence V. American Airlines, Inc., Eric Chin-Ru Chang

Seattle University Law Review

In Spence v. American Airlines, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas found that American Airlines breached its fiduciary duties due to BlackRock’s ESG investing practices. Contrary to some reports suggesting that the ruling prohibits ESG investing under ERISA, a closer look at the ruling shows that the court only targeted American Airlines’ failure to manage conflicts of interest appropriately, rather than the legality of ESG investing itself. In light of the intensifying ESG backlash in the United States, this Article cautions against further restrictive measures on ESG investing. Such measures would exacerbate the widening …

Mandating Fluoride: A Constitutional Exercise Of Police Power, Anita Jahangiri

Seattle University Law Review

This Note addresses the ongoing debate over fluoridation: the regulation of fluoride levels in public water systems. Extensive research indicates fluoridation, when regulated at the recommended concentration, is both safe and highly effective in preventing dental caries. Better known as cavities, dental caries is a preventable yet widespread health issue that disproportionately affects low-income populations. Reducing dental health disparities among economic classes is a pressing public health issue. Fluoridation is not merely a policy option, but a critical, proven tool to address such disparities and uphold the collective welfare of Washingtonians. This Note focuses on fluoridation as a public health …

Neurodiversity In The Courtroom: Expanding Jury Service Accessibility Beyond Physical Disability, Samantha L. Mabe

Seattle University Law Review

The Americans with Disabilities Act has required equal access to jury service for decades; however, efforts to accommodate jurors with disabilities have been slow to develop beyond some minor accommodations for physical disabilities. While neurodivergent people frequently struggle to navigate a world catered toward neurotypical people, jury service remains inaccessible for many neurodivergent people who need accommodations to attend trial and engage in jury deliberations. If courts and advocates do not consider how to develop accommodations to secure the service of neurodivergent jurors, they will miss out on the unique skillsets that neurodivergent people can bring to resolving disputes.

Disabled …

A Shield For Whom? The Disastrous Hidden Toll Of Section 230 On Children, Dominic Roschival

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Emotionally Unstable: Addressing Emotional Distress As A Concrete Injury In Data Breach Cases Post-Transunion, Anna P. Cox

Fordham Law Review

Data breaches and data breach litigation are exponentially on the rise. Plaintiffs whose information is stolen in a data breach often claim emotional distress for fear of future harm the data breach may cause. However, plaintiffs who bring suit in federal court must show that they have suffered an injury in fact for purposes of Article III standing before a federal court will exercise jurisdiction. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez requires that plaintiffs who seek money damages under a theory of risk of future harm show that they have suffered a present concrete injury to …

When The Screen Lies: Navigating Privacy And Publicity In An Ai World, Nancy M. Menagh

Fordham Law Review

A key issue of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike was the use of generative AI in the entertainment industry and, more specifically, the creation of uncanny digital replicas of performers being used without their knowledge or consent. Since then, concerns have only intensified around the unauthorized creation and use of digital replicas and the ease with which they can be made and disseminated online. Currently, there is a patchwork of state laws that attempt to target these issues, but they have proven ineffective against the challenges presented by digital replicas.

This Note analyzes the problems digital replicas have raised in the …

The Loyalty Trap: How Loyalty Programs Hook Us With Deals, Hack Our Brains, And Hike Our Prices, Samuel A.A. Levine, Stephanie T. Nguyen

Center for Law and the Economy

This paper examines the devolution of loyalty programs — from simple coupon programs to major lines of business transforming the retail experience. This devolution is happening in three stages. In the first stage — the hook — companies entice consumers by promising generous upfront benefits if consumers enroll. In the second stage — the hack — companies use loyalty programs to extract deep insights into our spending habits and willingness to pay, effectively hacking our brains. And in the third stage — the hike — companies make these programs worse for consumers — raising fees, devaluing points, limiting redemption options, …

Agentizing Privacy Preferences Without Privatizing Data Protection Policy, Frank Pasquale, Vanna Carter

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This essay explores how consumers might exercise newly restored agency in a digital environment increasingly shaped by generative AI. Rather than expecting consumers to read privacy-related terms of service, policymakers should encourage the emergence of Automated Consumer Agents (“ACAs”) capable of interpreting privacy provisions and acting on behalf of users according to their stated preferences. These systems could automatically reject objectionable forms of data extraction, translating consumer values into actionable decisions in online transactions.

Despite this promise, the rise of ACAs would also present new problems. Without supportive policy and legal frameworks, agentization of privacy preferences could itself reproduce or …

Is Your Data Good, Bad, Or Neutral?: Redefining Concreteness For Data Breach Harms, Jeeyoon Lim

Fordham Law Review

In recent years, the Supreme Court has tightened federal court standing requirements for intangible harms, including statutory harms. In TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, the Court held that a mere statutory violation, absent a common-law analogue, is not sufficiently concrete to grant standing. The Court did not provide clear guidance as to how stringent the common-law analogue analysis must be, other than that it does not require an “exact duplicate.” Because of the ever-evolving nature of digital data, data breach victims attempting to enforce their statutory right to privacy in federal court have struggled to rely on tradition and history …

Are Your Secrets Safe?: Imposing A Fiduciary Duty On Healthcare Ai Developers Dealing With Sensitive Health Information, Lauren Quinn

Fordham Law Review

In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to establish standards for transmitting health information. For decades, the HIPAA Privacy Rule has operated as the primary regulation protecting health information in the United States. However, in the decades since HIPAA was enacted, new technologies have demonstrated the shortcomings of the Privacy Rule. In particular, the development of healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) has created new privacy concerns and exacerbated existing ones. This Note examines the current healthcare privacy framework in the United States and considers how healthcare AI complicates it. This Note also explores how AI developers …

Dignity And Deepfakes, Michael Goodyear

Articles & Chapters

Today, we face a dangerous technosocial combination: AI-generated deepfakes and the Internet. Believable and accessible, these deepfakes have already spread sex, lies, and false advertisements across the Internet and targeted everyone from Taylor Swift to middle school students. Dissemination of deepfakes inflicts multifarious dignitary harms against their victims—especially women and LGBTQ+ persons—stripping them of control over their own identities, harming their reputations, and ostracizing them from society through shame.

Yet this is not the first time a new technology for capturing one’s likeness and a method for disseminating images threatened individuals’ dignity. In the late nineteenth century, the right of …

Law Enforcement, Reproductive Health Information, And The Hipaa Privacy Rule, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

On April 26, 2024, the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) promulgated a final rule (Final Rule) amending the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule. The Final Rule prohibits HIPAA covered entities and business associates from using and disclosing protected health information (PHI) to conduct criminal, civil, or administrative investigations into an individual for the mere act of seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating lawful reproductive health care. The Final Rule also prohibits HIPAA covered entities and business associates from using and disclosing PHI to impose criminal, civil, and administrative liability on any individual, or to …

Fairer Public Benefit In Copyright Law, Amanda Levendowski Tepski

Cardozo Law Review

In 1966, a court considered expressly whether a secondary use of copyrighted works served a public benefit. While public benefit has become a subfactor of the fair use doctrine, it remains undefined, uncodified, and undertheorized. Courts often invoked public benefit in pivotal cases involving novel technologies, from home video recorders to digital libraries to algorithms—but they did not need to. After the recent Supreme Court decision in Google v. Oracle, however, public benefit is unavoidable: The Court stated that “we must take into account the public benefits the copying will likely produce.” A qualitative analysis of key public benefit cases …

Civil Liability For Invasions Of Privacy: Whither Singapore?, Yu Han Lam

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Intrusions upon privacy are becoming increasingly common in Singapore. Singapore has yet to establish a tort addressing this issue, although the SAL Law Reform Committee has proposed a tort of misuse of private information. Australia has also recently introduced a statutory tort of serious invasion of privacy. This article will argue for the need for a Singapore tort of intrusion upon seclusion, on top of the already proposed tort of misuse of private information, to cover more appropriately instances of intrusions upon privacy.

Full Issue

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Editorial Board

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.