LAW3605 Privacy Law
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
From the scandal surrounding Cambridge Analytica's alleged use of personal data from Facebook users, Edward Snowden's whistleblowing about the NSA's surveilling the lives of average citizens, Google's scanning email content to help marketers engage in target advertising, to police use of DNA data on ancestry sites to track alleged criminals - we live in an age where privacy is in short supply. Nevertheless, the U.S., and lately Europe more so, have laws that place a high value on the privacy of their citizens. These laws try to strike a balance between honoring individual privacy, free speech, and creating economic growth and innovation that comes from monetizing private data. This course will explore privacy law, with a special focus on helping students cultivate the requisite leadership skills to develop forward thinking company privacy policies, greater individual awareness and empowerment over the use of their own data, and public policy. We will examine relevant leading technological developments, the internet, US domestic and global privacy law, and the cultural context in which these areas operate. Topics will include the US Constitution, free speech,intimacy and privacy, racial and DNA profiling, health records privacy, copyright law, tort law,wiretapping laws, anonymity, government records and public access, fair credit reporting, employer,monitoring of employees, student records privacy, and new European laws on data mining and,protection and cyber security. Note that this is also a writing intensive class, which will help students develop and enhance their writing skills through various kinds of writing assignments.
Prerequisites: LAW1000