13 September 2006. Bruce L. McDonald and Kirk J. Nahra, partners with Washington, D.C.-based Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP, discuss the 6 December 2005 D.C. Circuit Court ruling, which held that lawyers engaged in the practice of law are not subject to the privacy and security provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). They examine the case, American Bar Association v. Federal Trade Commission, 430 F.3d 457, and its history. 22 November 2004. The Australian Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner provides information about the privacy legislation, regulations, codes, determinations and guidelines that affect private sector business, health service providers and Commonwealth and ACT government agencies. You will find the text (or links to external sites with full-text) of the laws, principles and guidelines. You will also find information relevant to various aspects of privacy; for example, credit reporting and tax file numbers. 28 June 2004. This Washington Post business report discusses how consumers can protect personal information such as Social Security numbers and credit history. It also outlines what to do if you think you are a victim of identity theft and provides links to additional resources. 22 November 2004. FindLaw offers a good collection of resources on privacy law for legal professionals. Find a primer on online privacy law issues written by D. Reed Freeman, Jr. of Arent Fox. Also find briefly annotated links to external sites containing articles, laws and other legal documents and general information. 21 January 2004. The Center for Democracy and Technology provides a collection of resources on data privacy issues. Find news summaries with links to original sources, the Center's Guide to Online Privacy (2000), charts of pending legislation, including status information, issue briefs, commentary and more. A resource library offers links to additional on- and off-site resources. Some of the information; for example, the Guide to Online Privacy, is dated, but the Center clearly dates its materials. Visitors should take note of copyright and revision dates. 19 January 2004. Revised 25 September 2007. The European Commission maintains this site on data protection law. It provides information for lawyers and consumers alike. Find relevant legal instruments, including directives, regulations, treaties and case law, the implementation status of Directive 95/46/EC on the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data, related international instruments, model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries, news and more. A handy country chart provides access to information about the rights of citizens of member states. The site is available in available in French, German and English. 9 August 2005. BNA's Web Watch, compiled by Laura Gordon-Murnane, provides coverage of legislative and interest group initiatives on data security. Find links (with brief descriptions) to federal and state legislation, testimony and position papers. 6 August 2007. The legislative research librarians at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) track state legislative activity pertaining to Internet legal issues. Specific topical coverage includes spyware, disclosure of security breaches of consumer personal information, monitoring of employee e-mail and Internet access, and privacy policies on Web sites. You will also find links to policy statements and other documents (reports, position papers) from authoritative sources. 11 October 2005. Consumer advocacy group, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, explains background checking for employment purposes. Consisting of 10 parts, the guide informs about what employers can and cannot do with respect to background checking. While the guide speaks generally about federal law, it also highlights important differences in California state law. 6 August 2007. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCLS) compiles legislative developments in the 50 states concerning financial privacy generally. It also compiles legislative activity on credit card numbers, social security numbers and consumer security breach notification.
General coverage goes back to the year 2000, while coverage of legislation related to SSN privacy goes back to 2004. Legislative activity on credit card numbers covers this information on receipts (1999-2005) and skimming devices (2001-2006). Legislation on disclosing breaches goes back to 2002. 24 April 2006. The Better Business Bureau makes available a glossary of terms related to privacy issues. It provides short definitions to terms such as "cookie," "encryption" or "opt-in." It also offers a straight-forward explanation of the fair information practices principles. 6 August 2007. The legislative research librarians at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) track legislation in the 50 states pertaining to health privacy issues. Find state-by-state abstracts on several issues associated with genetics (embryonic and fetal research, genetic privacy, health insurance, human cloning, etc.), a 50-state chart on statutes pertaining to genetics, a summary of state laws related to newborn screening privacy, and more. 26 February 2001. The Health Privacy Project of the Institute for Health Care Research and Policy, Georgetown University, offers news and information about health care privacy issues. Find federal regulations and legislation, HPP congressional testimony, a report on state health privacy laws (over 200 pages), and more.
10 February 2004. Intended for use by medical researchers, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services offer this site on health privacy. It provides access to legal and educational materials. Find the health privacy rule and revisions, sample authorization forms, a booklet entitled "Protecting Personal Health Information in Research: Understanding the HIPAA Privacy Rule," guidance on access and use of health information in databases, and more. 12 May 2005. The Federal Trade Commission's consumer Web site contains an extensive section on identity theft. In addition to general educational information for consumers and businesses, you will find examples of scams, a list of relevant federal and state laws, FTC reports and testimony, and statistics. 12 May 2005. Revised 6 August 2007. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) maintains this Web site devoted to state and federal legal information about policies and strategies for combating identity theft. Find a chart of abstracted state laws that deal with identity theft as well as separate charts of abstracted pending and enacted state legislation from 2002 to 2005. In addition, there are charts of state legislation on issues such as the use of credit card numbers on receipts and consumer report security freezes. Researchers will also find related off-site resources as well as related NCSL publications. 12 May 2005. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse offers fact sheets, publications, speeches, testimony and victim stories related to identity theft. For example, find out how to reduce the risk of fraud or what to do if you become a victim of identity theft. Some of the information is also available in Spanish. 14 April 2004. The authors of the Aspen casebook, Information Privacy Law, make available updates to the publication. Updates contain newer related areas of law, information about government projects, federal law updates, new case law and more. You can display the update in HTML (using your Web browser) or download it as a Word document. 10 February 2004. The Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides information about health information privacy. Find several fact sheets and FAQs on topics like disclosures to family and friends and how to file a health information privacy complaint. Also find educational materials, information for small business providers, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations and standards and information about compliance and enforcement. 23 January 2004. In the site's words, "Privacilla takes a free-market liberal (or libertarian) stance toward privacy issues." It provides extensive commentary on many issues relating to privacy generally, privacy and government, online privacy, financial privacy and medical records privacy. Find, for example, government databases that store information about people. Some of the commentary includes linked bibliographic references for additional reading. 23 January 2004. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) provides extensive information about numerous privacy issues, including financial, children's, medical and Internet privacy. In addition to detailed commentary, you will find many links to primary documents. 29 October 2007. The law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, maintains this blog on privacy and security law. Lawyers comment on events in the news and legal developments, such as court decisions and state or federal legislation. The blog has an RSS feed and e-mail alert service for keeping up with new postings. The topics links on the home page take you directly to related commentary. You will also find this subject index in the site map. 15 August 2005. Personal data vendor, ChoicePoint, launched this Web site in response to recent incidents of fraud against the company that resulted in the exposure of consumer information. The Web site provides access to company statements on the data theft and resources for victims of the incidents, as well as information about avoiding identity theft. 23 January 2004. This single page on the Web site of the Federal Citizen Information Center offers basic information about privacy. It explains what you can, and cannot, stop, the right to opt out, types of privacy notices and where to go for help. An appendix summarizes the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. 23 January 2004. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) provides information relating to privacy. Topics include enforcement, financial privacy, credit reporting and children's privacy. In addition to brief explanations of each of these issues, you will find the text of relevant laws and regulations, testimony and more. 23 January 2004. Watchdog group Privacy International comments on events and developments concerning privacy issues. Comments often contain links to primary documents. Additionally, the site offers country reports, a newsletter on international privacy issues and several reports. 24 April 2006. Vanguard Vaults, a business that provides storage services for magnetic media, provides a summary of several major privacy laws. The summary, which appears to have been written during 2005, provides links to some legislative documents as well. The laws covered include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) of 2003 and the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act. 19 January 2004. A a non-profit consumer advocacy group, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse provides information on many privacy issues, including identity theft, financial privacy, access to medical records, pre-employment and employment background checks, electronic privacy and more. Find fact sheets, which provide basic information about an issue and tips for consumers. Additional resources include speeches and testimony, resources for victims of identity theft and links to privacy-related resources. 9 December 2004. The law firm Hughes & Luce, LLP sponsors this Weblog on trends and issues on the topic of privacy law. It comments on news stories and resources related to data protection, financial privacy, medical records privacy, technology and more. The site also offers an XML-based news feed. The feed contains full-text commentary. 23 January 2004. A joint project of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Privacy International, the Web site provides commentary about current events and developments concerning privacy issues. It links to additional resources and offers a news feed. 23 January 2004. The Center for Social & Legal Research in Hackensack, NJ offers this resource for consumer privacy and data protection laws, issues and trends and developments worldwide. It links to international and foreign privacy laws and legislation as well as select court opinions from around the world. Also find links to commentary, studies and reports. 14 April 2004. Technology attorney Michael Geist maintains this Web site on Canadian privacy law. It provides summaries of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner's decisions under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) as well as search features unavailable through the Commissioner's official Web site. You will also find privacy law related news, links to federal and provincial privacy legislation and related documents, and more. The site offers an email alert service as well as an RSS news feed. The news feed contains the full text of all postings. 20 August 2007. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reports on the state of public records laws in the U.S. Through anecdotal accounts, the Web site shares the difficulties journalists and others have in obtaining information the public has a right to know.
The opening story relates a lengthy struggle to obtain information about school bus drivers in Milwaukee even after it was discovered that a local school bus driver had been convicted of sex crime.
Lawyers and others seeking legal information will find summaries of state public records laws and many citations to case law. 15 August 2005. Online payment service, PayPal, provides a resource guide for victims of identity theft. In addition to services and utilities for PayPal subscribers, it offers general information and advise. Find an essay on the 5 things you can do to protect yourself, a tutorial on spoofed e-mail messages and Web sites, and a handy downloadable checklist. 9 December 2004. Funded by the National Center for State Courts, this site indexes documents dealing with public access to court records. Find white papers, government documents, Web sites, articles and more on privacy concerns related to public access. Some of the documents are briefly annotated. The home page highlights recent additions to the index. 27 April 2005. The American Library Association has compiled information on RFID technology. It highlights, and links to, organizations that oppose the technology, news about RFID, as well as additional sources of information. It also informs about an online discussion group (RFID_LIB) for examining the uses and implications of using Radio Frequency Identification technology in libraries. 9 August 2005. AARP suggests resources for victims of identity theft. This AARP Bulletin provides the Web site addresses and phone numbers of the three largest credit bureaus and links to government and interest group resources. It's a good starting pointing for victims. 24 April 2006. The Better Business Bureau makes available a summary (in PDF) of federal and state laws with privacy provisions. Please note: The summary appears to have been written in 2002 or early 2003. But while it does not contain information about current laws (for instance, the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) of 2003), it serves as a good starting point for identifying potentially relevant privacy laws. 27 April 2005. Marketing analyst Jimmy Atkinson and search engine optimization consultant Andy Hagans maintain this Weblog on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. They comment on press releases and news concerning the technology. They also provide an introduction (The Future Is Here: A Beginner's Guide to RFID) to RFID and an essay on privacy issues (How RFID Will Impact Consumer Privacy). The commentary we reviewed appears balanced, although many of the links to external Web sites point to conservative viewpoints. As an aside, the two are also developing a directory of RFID related resources. See RFid Directory. 27 April 2005. Librarian Laura J. Smart maintains this Weblog on the use of RFID in libraries. She, and other librarians, comment on the development of the library sector of the RFID industry, the vendors providing RFID services to libraries, the experience of librarians implementing RFID, and the controversies surrounding the use of the technology in a library setting. An RSS feed is available. 23 January 2004. Part of the "Law About" section of the Cornell Law School Web site, Right of Privacy contains a brief analysis of the several federal privacy laws. It also helpfully contains links to the text of the laws. A sidebar contains additional resources. See also: Right of Privacy: an Overview, Right of Privacy: Personal Autonomy, Right of Publicity. 12 April 2005. The Health Privacy Project offers this overview of state health privacy laws. Follow the link in the left-hand menu to display information for your state. The initial summary contains one or two sentences that highlight the law. It also notes the date of the information. Select the PDF link to display the full summary information with statutory citations. Be sure to obtain a current copy of the law before relying on the information. 11 October 2005. The American Library Association provides a guide to state confidentiality laws concerning information in library borrowing records. "Forty-eight of 50 states have such laws on the books, but the language varies from state to state." Researchers may download or view online a separate document (in RTF) for each state. This section of the ALA site also links to select documents on developing a library confidentiality policy. 6 August 2007. The legislative research librarians at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) track legislative activity in the 50 states on disclosure requirements related to security breaches involving consumer personal or financial information. The tracking begins in 2002. 13 September 2006. William B. Baker, a partner with Washington, D.C.-based Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP, explains that data brokerage firms, such as ChoicePoint, LexisNexis (Accurint) and Merlin, belong to an industry that is mostly unregulated. "In American law, data about persons generally belongs to the organization that maintains it as a business record, and such data is regarded as an asset of the company." He goes on to discuss the circumstances under which the collection, use and distribution of the data is subject to some regulation. He ends with some advice for businesses that collect personal information.
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