An Overview of Privacy Law

Abstract

Chapter 2 of PRIVACY LAW FUNDAMENTALS provides a brief overview of information privacy law – the scope and types of law. The chapter contains an historical timeline of major developments in the law of privacy and data security.

PRIVACY LAW FUNDAMENTALS is a distilled guide to the essential elements of U.S. data privacy law. In an easily-digestible format, the book covers core concepts, key laws, and leading cases.

Professors Daniel Solove and Paul Schwartz clearly and concisely distill all relevant information about privacy law into this short volume. PRIVACY LAW FUNDAMENTALS is designed to be like Strunk and White’s Elements of Style for the privacy field – the essential handy reference guide that cuts right to the heart of each topic.

The book covers the key provisions of all of the major privacy statutes and regulations: COPPA, DPPA, ECPA, FCRA, FERPA, FISA, FTC Act, GLBA, HIPAA, Privacy Act, VPPA, and more. In addition, it summarizes key state privacy laws such as data security breach notification statutes and provides an overview of FTC enforcement actions. The authors provide numerous charts and tables summarizing the privacy statutes (i.e. statutes with private rights of action, preemption, and liquidated damages, among other things).

Topics areas covered include: the media, domestic law enforcement, national security, government records, health and genetic data, financial information, consumer data, data security, education privacy, employment privacy, and international privacy law.

Keywords: privacy, cybersecurity, data security, FTC, Fourth Amendment, First Amendment, criminal procedure, surveillance, HIPAA, data breach