Week 5: Confidentiality and Privacy: do we need new privacy laws?

I am taking mostly historical information here on the various laws enacted between the 1970's and 2000's which have governed the use of Private Identifiable Information by the federal government and private companies in the US. Most of these laws: like HIPAA and the GLBA are incredibly relevant today to safeguarding our most personal data from people who would do use harm. For a long time this meant keep our data out of the hands of hackers and thieves and while that is still relevant today, there is seemingly a large gap between the US's privacy laws concerning private companies, and those of Europe. 

The stark difference is in the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California's Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) which were adopted in 2018 and 2020 respectively. The GDPR has a government oversight board by which all private companies must abide by. This creates an active participation in holding private companies responsible for consumer data. It is the job of a large body of people to do this. Whereas the CCPA has no such oversight committee and instead allows for individuals to sue the company should their rights be infringed upon. The lead here is that it is much easier for a government body made up of influential and power people to hold a company accountable versus one person on their own. We are talking about putting power in the hand of the government or the private companies. This is continuing to be a major issue especially in the US where the lines between the public and private sector are getting blurrier everyday.



References:

Harrington, D. (2024, November 13). U.S. Privacy Laws: The complete guide. Varonis. https://www.varonis.com/blog/us-privacy-laws

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