Privacy Regulation

Full Title or Meme

A list of various ways in which Governments have responded to User's Privacy concerns.

Context

Governments typically respond to changes in their constituent's online Ecosystems only when the pressure to change becomes unbearable.

There are four entities that are in play here. In most legislation all of the entities beside the user are considered in one lump as Data Controllers.

1. The user on a user device (aka a User Agent).
2. The resource provider (aka a Relying Party.)
3. Identifier or Attribute Providers.
4. Data Harvester or Broker

All of these have lobbyists working in the halls of government, but the ones that represent the User do not carry the same clout as those that represent the corporate interests. Also the lobbyist that claim to represent the user typically do not bother to ask the user what problems they actually would prefer to solve, but rather represent "issues", which may, or may not be actual User concerns.

Problems as Seen by the User

Users have a variety of reasons not to let their personal information be broadly available, some of those are:

• The right to the "let alone" based on a legal theory of Warren and Brandies.
  • Intimidation by people with evil intent (an active reason to be "let alone").
  • Government harassment (not always your own government), or worse.
  • Harassment by organizations what want to change the government, or worse.
  • Annoyance by trolls or advertisements by scammers looking profit by your vulnerability.
  • The easiest feature for any web site is allowing the user anytime access to remove themselves from any email.
  • The best feature for any web site is allowing the user anytime access to remove all record of them.
• The use of personal data to "steal you identity"; often lumped with privacy, this is usually criminal larceny.
  • Loss of potential (or real) earnings or direct attack on funds on deposit.
  • Tracking on-line makes you feel weird (where there is not any direct personal loss).
  • Pretending to be you in order to cause you legal or social problems, possibly as a means of blackmail.
• Embarrassment over one's past behavior or attributes (may also create direct personal loss).
• Discrimination based on one's personal attributes, health history or behavior.
• You are a crook or deviant.

Solutions

This page focuses on two jurisdictions which are currently active in creating Privacy Regulation. For more detail see the page on Privacy.

European Union

• See the page on GDPR which went into effect on 2018-06-24.
• The EU Data Protection Commissioners’ Opinion on data protection for Mobile Apps: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/documentation/opinion-recommendation/files/2013/wp202_en.pdf

California

• First-in-the-nation consumer privacy rights are the law of the land in California!
• The California State Attorney General’s recommendations for mobile privacy: Privacy on the Go: Recommendations for the Mobile Ecosystem

Washington

The sticking point in Washington is the right of private action which was stripped from the California law to enable passage.

• The Senate have passed a Privacy regulation for the third year in a row. 2021-03
• The Washington Privacy Act is back 2020-09