Privacy Law

Catalog description

The rapid grown of the Internet, coupled with new business practices and new efforts by government to deploy technology for law enforcement and the administration of programs, has raised far-reaching questions about the future of privacy. The role of law is central to many of these debates. This course begins by introducing students to the historic and philosophical justifications for recognizing a right of privacy. It then explores how those justifications have been applied to information gathered by the media, law enforcement, and private organizations. The course considers the developing principles for data collection, use, and security in general, and the extent to which legal protections exist in specific subject areas such as health and genetic information, and social, financial, and political activities. Students will learn the rules governing places, information, information integrity, and data security as developed under common law, statutes, regulations, and the U.S. Constitution. While the course focuses primarily upon U.S. law, it will regularly draw comparisons with EU privacy protection, and will also explore those rules on their own.