Privacy law
Privacy law is a set of regulations that govern the collection, storage, and utilization of personal information from healthcare, governments, companies, public or private entities, or individuals.
Advantages
Privacy laws have many advantages such as protecting personal and confidential details, including names, addresses, and contact information, as well as sensitive data like health records and financial information. These advantages can play an important role in businesses and companies as well, by protecting business information and data collection. Privacy Laws prohibit unauthorized indidviduals from accessing data.Privacy laws are examined in relation to an individual's entitlement to privacy or their reasonable expectations of privacy. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that every person possesses the right to privacy. However, the understanding and application of these rights differ among nations and are not consistently uniform.
Throughout history, privacy laws have evolved to address emerging challenges, with significant milestones including the Privacy Act of 1974 in the U.S. and the European Union's Data Protection Directive of 1995. Today, international standards like the GDPR set global benchmarks, while sector-specific regulations like HIPAA and COPPA complement state-level laws in the U.S. In Canada, PIPEDA governs privacy, with recent case law shaping privacy rights. Digital platform challenges underscore the ongoing evolution and compliance complexities in privacy law.
Classification of Privacy Laws
Privacy laws can be broadly classified into:- Privacy
- Trespassing
- Negligence
- Fiduciary
- Health Privacy
- Financial
- Territorial
Brief overview of the classifications of each category to understand the ways in which privacy rights are protected and regulated:
Privacy
Laws focus on protecting individuals’ rights to control their personal and sensitive information, while preventing unauthorized intrusion into their private lives. They encompass strict regulations governing data protection, confidentiality, surveillance, and the use of personal information by both government and corporate entities.Trespassing
Laws focus on breaches of privacy rights related to physical intrusion onto an individual's property or personal domain without consent. This involves illegal activities such as: entering an individual's residence without consent, conducting surveillance using physical methods, or any unauthorized entry onto the individual's property.Negligence
Laws generally address situations where individuals or entities fail to exercise appropriate caution in protecting the privacy rights of others, often holding them accountable through severe penalties like heavy fines. This aims to ensure compliance and deter future violations, involving incidents such as any mishandling of sensitive data, poor security measures leading to data breaches, or any non-compliance with privacy policies and regulations.Fiduciary
Laws regulate the relationships characterized by trust and confidence, where the fiduciary accepts and complies with the legal responsibility for duties of care, loyalty, good faith, confidentiality, and more when entrusted in serving the best interests of a beneficiary. In terms of privacy, fiduciary obligations may extend to professionals like lawyers, doctors, financial advisors, and others responsible for handling confidential information, as a result of a duty of confidentiality to their clients or patients.Health privacy
Privacy Laws relates to health privacy as well where its responsibility is assigned to individuals health and medical records and keeping them enclosed from unauthorized individuals and organizations. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act plays this role by protecting individuals medical and health records.Data Protection Laws in the United States
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act: The role of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act is to protect the online privacy of children and minors who are under the age of 13. This applies to those who utilize websites or other services that collects or uses data and information from children. This role provides data protection requirements for children's information collected by operators.Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's role is to protect individuals medical and health records. HIPAA applies to health insurance, healthcare providers, hospitals and insurance companies.
Gramm-Leach Bliley Act : The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act which is also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act is one of the United States law that require all financial companies and institutions to protect individuals financial information. The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act protects data security and financial privacy practices things such as banks, investment firms, mortgage lenders, and financial advisors, that are a part of the United States financial industry. This act acquires three main rules including: The Privacy Rule which makes sure that financial institutions explain their information sharing protocols to individuals, to give them the option to opt out of their information being shared, the Safeguard rule, which requires institutions to have formal and written informational security program, and Pretexting Provision, which prohibits obtaining or accessing customer under false pretexting or pretenses. Institutions should and mush implement security protocols against social engineering to prevent these risky scams.
Communications Act of 1934: This law includes data protection provisions for common carriers, cable operators, and satellite carriers.
- Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: prohibits the unauthorized access of protected computers.
- Consumer Financial Protection Act: regulates unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts in connection with consumer financial products or services.
- Fair Credit Reporting Act: covers the collection and use of data contained in consumer reports.
- Federal Securities Laws: may require data security controls and data breach reporting responsibilities.
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act: regulates health care providers' collection and disclosure of protected health information.
- Video Privacy Protection Act: provides privacy protections related to video rental and streaming.
International legal standards on privacy
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation introduced a voluntary Privacy Framework in 2004, which all 21 member economies adopted. This framework aims to enhance general information privacy and facilitate the secure transfer of data across borders. It comprises nine Privacy Principles, serving as minimum standards for privacy protection, including measures to prevent harm, provide notice, limit data collection, ensure personal information is used appropriately, offer choice to individuals, maintain data integrity, implement security safeguards, allow access and correction of personal information, and enforce accountability.In 2011, APEC established the APEC Cross Border Privacy Rules System to balance the flow of information and data across borders, which is crucial for fostering trust and confidence in the online marketplace. This system builds upon the APEC Privacy Framework and incorporates four agreed-upon rules, which involve self-assessment, compliance review, recognition/acceptance, and dispute resolution and enforcement.
Council of Europe
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, established by the Council of Europe in 1950 and applicable across the European continent except for Belarus and Kosovo, safeguards the right to privacy. It asserts that "Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." Through extensive case law from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, privacy has been clearly defined and universally recognized as a fundamental right.Furthermore, the Council of Europe took steps to protect individuals' privacy rights with specific measures. In 1981, it adopted the Convention for the protection of individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data. Additionally, in 1998, the Council addressed privacy concerns related to the internet by publishing "Draft Guidelines for the protection of individuals with regard to the collection and processing of personal data on the information highway," developed in collaboration with the European Commission. These guidelines were formally adopted in 1999.
European Union (EU)
The 1995 Data Protection Directive acknowledged the authority of National data protection authorities and mandated that all Member States adhere to standardized privacy protection guidelines. These guidelines stipulated that Member States must enact stringent privacy laws consistent with the framework provided by the Directive. Moreover, the Directive specified that non-EU countries must implement privacy legislation of equivalent rigor to exchange personal data with EU countries. Additionally, companies in non-EU countries wishing to conduct business with EU-based companies must adhere to privacy standards at least as strict as those outlined in the Directive. Consequently, the Directive has influenced the development of privacy legislation beyond European borders. The proposed ePrivacy Regulation, intended to replace the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2002, further contributes to EU privacy regulations.On 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation superseded the Data Protection Directive of 1995. A significant aspect introduced by the General Data Protection Regulation is the recognition of the "right to be forgotten," which mandates that any organization collecting data on individuals must delete the relevant data upon the individual's request. The Regulation drew inspiration from the European Convention on Human Rights mentioned earlier.