Privacy Petitions and Institutional Legitimacy

Abstract

This Article argues that a transparent petitioning process for privacy concerns arising from new technologies is essential for gauging privacy social norms and legitimating new technologies. The data accumulated from such a petitioning process provides the requisite information and incentives to encourage institutions to incorporate social norms into privacy policy development. Accessible petitioning allowing individuals to petition institutions tends to empower and make more visible the concerns of individuals who have privacy concerns with a new technology. This tends to give the both private and public actors an incentive to act to assuage individual concerns and build trust with the public. The article explores three possible institutional avenues for petitions process in detail, namely (1) state courts, (2) state agencies, and (3) private actors, who would be mandated to disclose the submissions to a government agency.

Keywords: privacy, regulation, consumer protection, new governance, big data, administrative law, public law, transparency