1. Introduction
2. Historical Development
3. United States Posture
4. Source of the Problem
5. Privacy as a Public Policy Issue
6. Contemporary Privacy
6.1 Current Example
7. Public Policy Again
7.1 An Illustration – CNI
8. The Broadened Public Issue
9. Possible Approaches to Protection
10. Related Effects
11. Privacy as Social Equity
12. New Privacy Versus Old
13. Context for New Privacy
14. Privacy Versus Public Distaste
15. The Future for Privacy
16. References
What are possible mechanisms for dealing with the new dimensions
of privacy?
- The Fair Code, perhaps extended or elaborated in some way, would be an approach
but as presently embodied in law, it can only compel a specified behavior
by Federal Agency. It remains to be seen whether such a Code can be effective
in an environment of private-sector network connectivity.
- Specific targeted law which is what we have done to date. It will always
be after the fact of necessity, and the response time by lawmakers may not
be very rapid.
- Give an individual standing to sue if he can show harm. The catch here will
be in defining harm and in establishing its reality. Showing harm in a court
of law is tedious, difficult, and in the context of privacy, may be impossible.
Certainly a lot of case law and therefore time would be required to give it
a good foundation.
- Give an individual standing to compel a prescribed-by-law set of behaviors
by the recordkeeping organization. This is probably easier to administer than
a standing to sue for harm, but working out an acceptable “Code of Fair
Behavior” that would cover much, or most, of the information industry
would be tricky. On the other hand, one might be able to deal with organized
industries one by one, and tailor a Fair Code to each.
- Put in place more formalized watchdog organizations. Many states have consumer
rights offices and perhaps they can be bolstered. With the interstate nature
of the information industry though, it is really a federal problem, not a
state problem.
- Go all the way and put a data protection board in place in the Federal government.
Such a proposal has been made in draft legislation but as proposed it probably
would not be effective. Europe would be delighted, and it would avoid a nasty
coming problem for the country. The European Community (EC-92) move to create
a “United States of Europe” is floating a uniform privacy position
that deals with flow of personal information across national borders, and
the present U.S. posture in privacy is not consistent with that proposed for
EC-92.
- Institute some form of insurance to cover unusual privacy events or circumstances
for which we can think of no other response. But establishing an insurance
claim would again equate to showing harm, and it has already been observed
that such is difficult to do.
- Establish by law that an individual has a right of ownership in information
about himself – a very unusual approach. Imagine the consequences if
every private-sector organization that used personal information would have
to acquire rights to or pay royalties for the use of information about oneself.
And just what would be included in personal information? Name
– it is already splattered all over public and private records. Address
– the same thing. Financial information – government already has a
lot of it and some, such as bankruptcy events, are public records; credit industry
already has a lot. It would be a retroactive destruction of the industry to
impose on it a royalty structure payable to every data subject.
While an interesting thought and attractive in some ways, a royalty approach
would seem to fall simply for practical reasons. An information industry, whose
stock-in-trade is personal information, has a right to exist under the laws
and heritage of this country. Businesses have the right to conduct their affairs
in a way economically advantageous to themselves, so long as they remain within
the law.
- Deal with privacy on an industry-by-industry basis. Consider as an example
the cable industry which happens to fall under various regulatory acts, one
of them the Cable Communications Act of 1984. Section 631 of the Act levies
certain obligations on every cable operator, and they generally reflect the
provisions of the Code of Fair Information Practices – right to see the
record, to challenge errors, to cause corrections, to know the uses made of
it. Such an approach could be used for any cohesive organized industry, especially
if some law already regulates it.
Of the possible ways to accommodate privacy concerns, no one is really wholly
satisfactory but maybe some combination of them can be effective.
Go to: 10. Related Effects
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