Since the early stage of the United States, privacy has always been one of the biggest concerns of Americans. Indeed, the American society value privacy significantly as one of he basic human rights. Nowadays technology has growth rapidly, information become so valuable that people called it the era of information. As the result, information privacy has emerged to be one of the biggest concern of the society today. Developed technology does not only make it extremely efficient for transferring information but also gives opportunity for information privacy invader. Let’s discover about information privacy issues along with the related laws.
First of all, what is the protection for privacy by law. Indeed, Even though privacy is always one of the biggest concern of American society, there is no where in the Constitution of the United States we would found the word privacy. Indeed, the privacy had never been explicitly recognized in the Constitution before the fourteenth Amendment. According to Paul Siegel, privacy is first explicitly recognized by the Constitution in 1965 in which the fourteenth Amendment was established to protect the constitutional right of privacy by “[telling] the government ‘it may not take away our life, liberty or property without due process of law’”(Paul 173). In the other words, law enforcements agents may not violate privacy of others unless being authorized by the courts. For example, before searching a person’s house or property such as computer, policemen must have authorization from the court to get into his or her house.
In his book Communication Law in America, Paul Siegel revealed that after reviewing thousands of cases related to privacy right, William Prosser, who is now the dean of the University of California, Berkeley’s Law school, had come up with four separated torts privacy actions: appropriation, intrusion, false-light, and public disclosure. It is necessary to remind that these torts are not constitutional law; however, most states have adopted at least one of these four torts (Paul 175-177).
In his book, Paul writes: “Appropriation… consists of the unauthorized use of a person’s name or “likeness” – voice, picture, and the likes- for commercial purposes” (Paul 176). There are two grievanances of appropriation: finance and dignity. Regarding to financial grievanances, it would be wrong to use other’s information privacy to enrich yourselves because you are enriching in expense of others. The second grievances means that the victims’ reputations may be damaged as the result of the information privacy invasion (Paul 177). One interesting fact about the appropriation tort is that politicians would almost not protected by the appropriation tort. According to Paul, “politicians who sue over appropriations of their likenesses almost always lose, usually because courts conclude that the resulting “speech” is a form of political commentary” (Paul 196).
The second tort is intrusion which “refers to an invasion of one’s personal space” (Paul 176). For example, it would be a violation of privacy if one get into another’s house without permission. In fact, it would not be always easy to enforce law because there is some controversial issues that is hard to determine what would be the best appropriate actions. For instance, newspaper or magazines reporters usually must collect information about people who may not like to be watched. Movie stars may experience the problem most; we see on TV many scandals about their personal life. Would the reporters violate the privacy right or intrusion? Indeed, according to Paul Siegel’s Communication Law In America, ““there is generally no intrusion if the media capture images of scenes that any passerby could have seen (unless the media otherwise act egregiously” (Paul 207). That is, the law protected media to do their jobs as long as their acts are not egregious. Because if any passerby could have seen a scene, that scene should not be consider to highly personal information; thus, it would not be enough to call for intrusion.
Another tort is false-light which “…closely resemble libel actions, with the key distinction being that the statements made about the unwilling subject need not be technically defamatory” (Paul 176). So, similar to libel, plaintiff needs to show that there is false of statement or deception. However, it is different with libel that the plaintiff needs not to show that he or she is defamatory. Instead, she or he only needs to shows that she or he is humiliated or be embarrassed because of the false statement. As Paul writes: ““The false-light tort is similar to libel, except that the remarks that cast the plaintiff in a false lightened not be defamatory; they can simply be embarrassing (and false)” (Paul 216).
The last tort is Public disclosure. According to Paul, public disclosure “expresses the proposition that there are some kinds of highly personal but true information that no one has a right to publicize about us” (Paul 176). For example, it may be a public disclose if some one post a highly personal picture of another on Internet. Even though the picture is a real one without fixing it, it may cause the person be embarrassed or damage his or her reputation.
Today, Internet become so popular that makes information rapidly exchange from one another. Internet connect millions of people together; thus, they have the access to get information from one another, especially websites operators. Understanding the potential problem that web operators may get information from customers and use it improperly; the government of the United States have established many regulations to prevent and fix the problems related to information privacy invasion. One of those are the requirement by the government for web operators to dispose customers’ information. According to the Bureau of Consumer Protection Business Center, “in an effort to protect the privacy of consumer information and reduce the risk of fraud and identity theft, a new federal rule is requiring businesses to take appropriate measures to dispose of sensitive information derived from consumer reports”(ftc.gov). For example, if you used to buy stuff from eBay; thus, you give the web operator your personal information including your debit card numbers. After a long period of time such as two years, you have not use the web site to buy things anymore. Because you have not been using the web for a long period of time, the web operator should dispose your personal information including your debit card information. Because there is potential chance that some hacker can go to the web site to steal your information. So, it is better off for you if the company get rid of your information on the page.
In general, information is a property and it would be violation of privacy right if some one disclose your information without permission. However, because we all live in a society where anyone communicate and thus share information with one another; thus, the chance that some information may be disclose appropriately without violation of law. The government of United States have identified several situations that some information can be disclosed without violating the law. According to the Privacy Act of 1974, the government list several conditions of disclosure that would not violate the law. The first condition is that the disclosure of information “to those officers and employees of the agency which maintains the record who have a need for the record in the performance of their duties” (www.jutice.gov). It is reasonable because without the access to information, the employees have no way to store and manage the information of others. The privacy is still there because the employees may not share the information with people from outside and they are also not personally know the customers. Another important condition of disclosure is when the disclosure is “to a recipient who has provided the agency with advance adequate written assurance that the record will be used solely as a statistical research or reporting record, and the record is to be transferred in a form that is not individually identifiable” (www.justice.gov). Every day, we hear form the media about unemployment rate or other statistical results. In fact, all the statistical result come from a pool of information that the companies or agencies collect from individuals mostly without their knowledge. For example, the Bureau of the Census usually collect information about you to know how much on average Americans make a year. They may acquire your tax income information from IRS or other government agencies to get the result. It may not violate the privacy rights because such action is accepted by law. Moreover, in general sense, it is also appropriate because the using of information is appropriate and beneficial for anyone.
As we are living in the era of information, information privacy always one of the biggest concerns of our society today. Indeed, the better we get to know about information privacy, the better we are protected and benefit from technology today. Because we need to share. As I have shown above, the government of United States recognized the issues of information privacy and have issued many regulation regarding to the topic. Understanding and get to know these regulation may help you better use the information without violating the law and also have a better knowledge of what protection you have when you share information with others.
Works Cited
Paul Siegel. Communication Law In Amaerica. 2008. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Second Edition. Book.
“Disposing of Consumer Report Information? New Rule Tells How.” Ftc.gov. June 2005. Bureau of Consumer Protection Businesss Center. October 17, 2011. <http://business.ftc.gov/documents/alt152-disposing-consumer-report-information-new-rule-tells-how>
“The Privacy Act of 1974.”
www.justice.gov. The United States Department of Justice. October 17, 2011. <http://www.justice.gov/opcl/privstat.htm>
