Information Privacy Law

This course offers an overview of information privacy. In a digital economy and an increasingly networked information society, it is increasingly complicated to understand the legal frameworks available that allow for users to maintain control over one’s cyberself, dataself, and digital identity. As almost all aspects of our social, economic, and political lives are mediated through online technologies, the question of how to protect one’s personal information is challenging and complex. Federal agencies, courts, and Congress, as well as state and local governments, have struggled to find statutory, regulatory, and interpretative tools to protect information privacy with the advance of emerging technologies. The survey course introduces information privacy jurisprudence in constitutional law, tort law, and through statutes and regulations. The course examines cybersurveillance, including social media surveillance, and ubiquitous data tracking. The course further explores the information privacy impact of the Internet of Things, web and mobile data collection capacities, and real time situational awareness technologies that integrate live social media activity with other database screening capacities, such as facial recognition technologies. Finally, the course will look at future trends in information privacy protection.