Identity and Privacy Law
In my opinion, modern civilization obviously has a serious privacy problem. No one can even publicly use their real name online without the very likely outcome of abuse or identity destruction, and supervision must be extremely invasive as a countermeasure, which leads authorities into similar abusive practices. It seems that with a few strategically directed lawsuits or particularly well-constructed legal documents, some simple precedents could be set that protect citizens without requiring massive legislative reform, such as an overhaul of tort law. Is it even possible to insure ordinary joes from being blown up by the system or its savviest manipulators? What is the philosophy that upholds such a volatile situation, and can it be changed?
Comments (10)
I'm a privacy officer in the medical field and privacy law is far from simple, I can assure you. Lawsuits there are aplenty.
If they seem to be doing something that would warrant an accountable? "system" from "blowing them up" .. I'd question your understanding of the word "average".
Who's doing the suing, is it class actions for online security breaches, sole individuals against information distribution companies, corporations for intellectual property concerns? What kind of improvements are being made to privacy law by way of legal proceedings? What medical circumstances warrant lawsuits?
There is an ever-increasing escalation of the importance of protecting privacy, which is reflected in evolving regulations surrounding the collection, use, and sharing of private information. I don't know of any details surrounding a lot of the consumer cases you mentioned, but in the medical field specifically privacy breaches and investigations are frequent and the decisions by the IPC on a case by case basis get regularly piled on to the mass of existing legislative and regulatory guidelines.
I guess it is like legislation by bureaucracy.
What kind of privacy breaches happen in the medical field?
No limit. Results get sent to the wrong people. Some people conspire to steal personal health information to sell it. Everything in between. People snoop on their friends, or on famous people. Etc. Etc. Etc.
edit: there is malfeasance, but much of what I do is process related. As regulations become more strict, outmoded processes tend to produce accidental privacy breaches. I work at identifying and remedying these a lot.
Quoting tim wood
What conditions do you think justify legal help to protect your business from a well-moneyed entity that disruptively or destructively believes your business is their business, and , how far do the institutional mechanisms which could enable an effective defense reach in real life?
I think the future of privacy is very much in question. Right now, for all then increasing legislation about privacy, people are voting privacy out with their feet. Or, more accurately, with their usage habits.
Big data is just too convenient. It tells you where you need to go, what to expect on the way, where else you might want to go, what you might enjoy etc. Etc. And that's just the start. It's entirely plausible that a medical bracelet could diagnose common illnesses just by comparing your vital functions to a database.
I am sceptical whether that process can be stopped. Perhaps we need a new notion of privacy? Something akin to security through obscurity, where you hide what you need to inside the mass of data