Marc Rotenberg

A 2015 deeply researched analysis of major US privacy problems, from the director and members of the Washington DC Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) nonprofit group (http://www.epic.org). Essential reading for anyone with a computer and/or cell phone, especially Americans, since the USA is the only Western country without comprehensive Federal privacy laws ... interesting.

(Note: "The Privacy Act of 1974, the main privacy law in the United States, set out an omnibus approach for show more privacy protection in the public sector, but left open the question of how best to regulate the collection and use of personal information in the private sector.") This book is endorsed by privacy/security writer Bruce Schneier (who also contributed a brief chapter), several law school professors, a European privacy administrator, Jeffrey Rosen, president of the US-based National Constitution Center, and US Senator Edward Markey (D-MA).

US privacy law on robotics has begun to cover only the use of airborne drones. The unregulated capabilities of ground-based robots, however, now include the ability to "climb the sides of buildings or jump thirty feet into the air onto a roof." Other robots are now being developed that are "designed to squeeze under doors." (I recommend that you contact your US Federal Congress member and your Senators to demand privacy legislation on any use of robots in the United States.) See also the 2015 science and technology bestseller Future Crime by Marc Goodman for more examples of the criminal use of robot and drone technology.

In the book's health privacy chapter, written by a medical doctor, we find out that the HIPAA privacy rule was amended in 2002, and "the right of consent, i.e., to control the use and disclosure of personal health information, was eliminated ... This key fact was not reported by the media."

That's just a few examples of why Privacy In The Modern Age is a must read. The book covers many more issues in the wounded but fixable US privacy landscape. show less

In Privacy, Information, and Technology, Solove and Schwartz provide some information about privacy law and conceptions of privacy. They note that Warren and Brandeis's 1890 "The Right to Privacy" arose because of technological developments that gave alarm about privacy, including "instantaneous photography," such as the development of Kodak's 1884 "snap camera" (11), and the increase in circulation of newspapers (1,000 percent increase between 1850 and 1890). Privacy entered tort law in New show more York in 1903 (26), and tort laws generally protect the public disclosure of private facts, intrusion upon seclusion, portrayal of a person in "false light," and the appropriation of one's "name or likeness" (31).

Privacy isn't explicitly stated in the constitution, but is read into through the First Amendment (protection of assembly), Third Amendment (privacy of home), Fourth Amendment (safe from search and seizure, which gets read as right to be "let alone"), and the Fifth Amendment (protects against self-incrimination) (33-35).

Solove and Schwartz stress the difference between "the concept of privacy and the right of privacy": "Privacy as a concept involves what privacy entails and how it is to be valued. Privacy as a right involves the extent to which privacy is (and should be) legally protected" (39). show less