Protecting Information Privacy

This report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (the Commission) examines the threats to information privacy that have emerged in recent years, focusing on the activities of the state. It argues that current privacy laws and regulation do not adequately uphold human rights, and that fundamental reform is required. It identifies two principal areas of concern: the state’s handling of personal data, and the use of surveillance by public bodies. The central finding of this report is that the existing approach to the protection of information privacy in the UK is fundamentally flawed, and that there is a pressing need for widespread legislative reform in order to ensure that the rights contained in Article 8 are respected. The report argues for the establishment of a number of key ‘privacy principles’ that can be used to guide future legal reforms and the development of sector-specific regulation. The right to privacy is at risk of being eroded by the growing demand for information by government and the private sector. Unless we start to reform the law and build a regulatory system capable of protecting information privacy, we may soon find that it is a thing of the past

Taxonomy for Information Privacy Metrics

A comprehensive privacy framework is essential for the progress of the information privacy field. Some practical implications of a comprehensive framework are laying foundation for building information privacy metrics and having fruitful discussions. Taxonomy is an essential step in building a framework. This research study attempts to build taxonomy for the information privacy domain based on empirical data. The classical grounded theory approach introduced by Glaser was applied and incidents reported by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) are used for building the taxonomy. These incidents include privacy related current research works, data breaches, personal views, interviews, and technological innovations. TAMZAnalyzer, an open source qualitative data analysis tool, was used in coding, keeping memos, sorting, and creating categories. The taxonomy is presented in seven themes and several categories including legal, technical, and ethical aspects. The findings of this study helps practitioners understand and discuss the subjects and academia work toward building a comprehensive framework and metrics for the information privacy domain

Constitutional Issues in Information Privacy

The U.S. Constitution has been largely ignored in the recent flurry of privacy laws and regulations designed to protect personal information from incursion by the private sector, despite the fact that many of these enactments and efforts to enforce them significantly implicate the First Amendment. Questions about the role of the Constitution have assumed new importance in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Efforts to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators and to protect against future terrorist attacks, while threatening to weaken constitutional protections against government intrusions into personal privacy, demonstrate vividly the value of information collected in the marketplace and the need for such information in the future. While there is some suggestion that the First Amendment may be a source of privacy rights applicable to the collection and use of personal information by the private sector, it is clear that the First Amendment restrains the power of the government to enact and enforce privacy laws that curtail expression. The precise extent of that restraint depends on a number of factors, not all of which have been clearly resolved by the Supreme Court. But, as the events of September 11 starkly remind us, the price of privacy may be very high indeed. Legislators, regulators, and prosecutors who ignore the First Amendment when considering privacy laws do so at their'and our'peril.

Information Privacy and Data Security

Legal academic and policy discourse generally presumes that information privacy and data security are interchangeable goals. The conventional wisdom is that data security is a handmaiden of information privacy, and so what serves data security will serve information privacy. However, this view is an oversimplification of the relationship between the two fields. This Essay aids law and policy development in both fields by correctly defining their relationship to one another. Data security has separate objectives from information privacy that can be agnostic or even in opposition to information privacy. The law should acknowledge information privacy and data security as separate institutional objectives to prevent undesirable—or at least unpredictable—results in edge cases in which data security’s objectives run counter to those of information privacy

App Information Privacy Concerns

Due to the new technological developments and solutions a new user of information systems evolved. Smart Mobile Devices (SMD) and software in form of mobile applications (apps) diffused into the everyday life of users. The download and usage of apps became ubiquitous and by giving away personal data while using apps, individuals put their privacy at risk. Privacy concerns are generally used to measure information privacy. However, privacy is highly context dependent and needs to be adapted to the investigated environment. Therefore, the authors developed a measurement for app information privacy concerns (AIPC), based on existing literature. A data set of 269 participants was analyzed. For the AIPC three first-order dimensions (anxiety, personal attitude, and requirements) were revealed

Teaching Information Privacy Law

Teaching information privacy law is exciting and challenging because of the fast pace of technological and legal development and because information privacy law sprawls across a vast array of disparate areas of substantive law that do not automatically connect. This Essay provides one approach to teaching this fascinating, doctrinally diverse, and rapidly moving area of law. Through the framework of ten key course themes, this pedagogical approach seeks to help students find a common thread that connects these various areas of law into a cohesive whole. This framework provides a way to think about not only privacy law, but also law generally