Browsing by Subject "Privacy law"
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Item Aligning Online Privacy Protection with Reasonable Expectations of Privacy: How Joffe Can Be Used to Modernize the Wiretap Act(Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-05) Mason, MatthewBetween May 2007 and 2010, as part of its popular Street View project, Google collected an enormous amount of Wi-Fi data transmitted from unencrypted networks throughout the United States and over thirty countries worldwide. After initially denying the collection of any payload data, Google publicly acknowledged that fragmented samples of payload data were collected from open Wi-Fi networks due to a code mistakenly included in its Street View software. Several months later, however, Google admitted that the data collected was not just fragmentary in nature; in some instances the full content of e-mails, URL searches, passwords, and financial transactions were collected. In response to what has been called a “big brother-like . . . invasion of privacy,” investigations have been launched in the United States and abroad. In a private action against Google, the Northern District of California denied Google’s motion to dismiss a claim alleging that Google’s collection of payload data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks violated the Wiretap Act. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that Wi-Fi communications do not constitute an “electronic communication . . . readily accessible to the general public” under the Wiretap Act, and thus are not exempt from liability. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Joffe v. Google, Inc. raises a number of important issues that may have significant implications on privacy protections for Internet and other electronic communication. Joffe exposed our current privacy protection framework as inadequate for new technologies and advancements in communication. Such inadequacy raises the question as to what extent, and in what way, Congress must update the Wiretap Act to accommodate a changing communication landscape since the enactment of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) in 1986. Furthermore, it becomes necessary to consider whether users of unsecured Wi-Fi networks have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their transmitted electronic communications. As a corollary, it is important to examine how offline Fourth Amendment principles may be applied to an increasingly online society to protect an individual’s electronic and Internet communications. This Comment seeks to examine how Congress, and the courts, might use Joffe as a springboard to bring privacy protections up to date with technological and communication advances. This Comment analyzes the reasoning and holding advanced by the Joffe court, placing Joffe in context with the current state of the law, and argues that Congress and courts should use Joffe to align the reality of users’ knowledge of Wi-Fi technology and reasonable expectations of privacy with the Wiretap Act. This Comment concludes that Congress should amend the ECPA to expressly protect both encrypted and unencrypted Wi-Fi transmissions, and that courts should adapt offline Fourth Amendment principles to protect online and other electronic communications.Item Did You Give the Government Your Baby’s DNA? Rethinking Consent in Newborn Screening(Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-05) Suter, SoniaNewborn screening (NBS) has long offered the possibility of identifying rare conditions, which can be lethal or debilitating if not detected and treated quickly in the newborn period. These screening programs, usually mandatory, have been well established in every state since the 1960s. In the last decade, the number of conditions screened for has risen exponentially to include more than fifty inborn errors of metabolism, blood disorders, genetic, or other conditions. Not surprisingly, newborn screening programs have been widely accepted for their potential to save the lives of countless children. Despite their valuable public health benefits, however, old approaches to, and more recent expansions of, NBS raise important privacy and policy concerns. NBS samples are collected in most states without affirmative, or sometimes any, consent from parents. NBS programs now screen for an ever-broadening range of diseases—sometimes without careful assessment of the risks and benefits—including conditions for which there is no treatment. NBS samples are retained for long periods or indefinitely. And finally, few, if any, limits prevent potentially invasive uses of these samples by the government or third parties. Indeed, evidence suggests that a great deal of research is being conducted on these stored blood spots, the collection and storage of which many parents are simply unaware. Only a few lawsuits and legislatures have addressed the legality of these practices. With recent expansions in the scope of NBS and increased interest in these samples for research, it is time to take a fresh look at this long-standing public-health system and to reexamine some of the underlying philosophies and practices associated with it. While NBS offers important public health benefits, it also threatens some of the civil liberties of the parents and children involved. This piece argues for the need to strike a careful balance between the public goods and private interests, and describes a methodology that allows these competing values to be recognized in policymaking. It concludes by suggesting ways to balance the important values of maximizing the well-being of newborns and promoting research, while also protecting autonomy and privacy as much as possible.Item The Times They Are a-Changin’: Shifting Norms and Employee Privacy in the Technological Era(Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology, 2014-05) Durham Taylor, Lisa M.When it comes to employee privacy rights in emerging technologies, the times they are a-changin’. In the dawn of the modern technological era, when electronic mail and the Internet were in their relative infancy, the right to privacy meant almost nothing in the workplace. Employers could promise that e-mail would not be monitored, but then proceed to do so anyway. When employees sued, seeking vindication of their perceived privacy rights, courts cast aside any notion that an employee could expect privacy in the workplace, and they did so almost uniformly. The tide, however, appears to be turning. Judicial decisions rendered in more recent years, coupled with comparable statutory reform initiatives, suggest that as social norms shift in light of the rapid development and mainstreaming of modern technologies, the law is affording protection to employees that previously did not exist. This Article takes a retrospective-comparative approach to this turning tide, delving deeply into the law of the early era of modern technology and juxtaposing it against more recent developments. The result is exposition of an unmistakable trend favoring employee rights. This Article therefore tackles head-on the ultra-modern legal problem of workplace privacy rights in emerging technologies, but it does so in novel ways, as the first to suggest that the trend is shifting toward greater recognition of employee rights at the expense of employer prerogative.