Information Privacy Law

The collection and use of personal information by governments and private businesses has increased in recent years. As a result, privacy has come to the forefront of public consciousness. This course surveys and analyzes both traditional privacy problems and privacy issues triggered by recent changes in technology and national-security policy.

In addition to covering the origins and normative conceptions of informational privacy, we will cover constitutional, statutory, and common-law rules relating to: 1) traditional- and online- media intrusions; 2) law enforcement and surveillance; 3) the collection of information in government databases; 4) the collection of information in business databases; 5) the collection and use of medical and genetic information; and 6) the surveillance of students in schools and of employees at the workplace. We will also discuss international data-privacy laws and guidelines (esp. the EU data-protection directive, the ECHR framework, and the APEC privacy framework) and how they affect U.S. companies.

This course will be useful to students who plan to counsel clients in either a litigation, compliance, or transactional context in industries in which the collection or processing of personal information plays a large part. Most companies that do business over the Internet fall within this sphere, as do many large “brick and mortar” companies. Students who plan to practice in the area of civil or human rights should consider taking this course. Lastly, students interested in criminal prosecution, criminal defense, or national security should also find the subject interesting.

(NB: Though this course will occasionally discuss decisional-privacy law (as a comparative tool), decisional privacy is covered in Constitutional Law II).