Ransomware is one of the most frightening scourges to hit the Internet. Ransomware is a form of malware (malicious code) that encrypts a person’s files and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them. If the money isn’t paid, the encryption keys are destroyed, and the data is lost forever. Ransomware began to emerge in 2009, […]
Last week, the EU issued the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a long-awaited comprehensive privacy regulation that will govern all 28 EU member countries. Clocking in at more than 200 pages, this is quite a document to digest. According to the European Commission press release: “The regulation will establish one single set of rules which […]
By Daniel J. Solove Proponents for allowing government officials to have backdoors to encrypted communications need to read Franz Kafka. Nearly a century ago, Kafka deftly captured the irony at the heart of their argument in his short story, “The Burrow.” After the Paris attacks, national security proponents in the US and abroad have been […]
“The US is developing a law of cybersecurity that is incoherent and unduly complex,” says Ed McNicholas, one of the foremost experts on cybersecurity law. McNicholas is a partner at Sidley Austin LLP and co-editor of the newly-published treatise, Cybersecurity: A Practical Guide to the Law of Cyber Risk (with co-editor Vivek K. Mohan). The […]
By Daniel J. Solove It is essential that children learn about data privacy and security. Their lives will be fully enveloped by technologies that involve data. But far too little about these topics is currently taught in most schools. Fortunately, there is a solution, one that I’m proud to have been involved in creating. The […]
By Daniel J. Solove Next year, there will be a milestone birthday for the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) – the primary federal law that regulates how the government and private parties can monitor people’s Internet use, wiretap their communications, peruse their email, gain access to their files, and much more. This is no ordinary […]
By Daniel J. Solove At my annual event, the Privacy+Security Forum, which was held last month, one of the sessions involved privacy and security in fiction. The panelists had some terrific readings suggestions, and I thought I’d share with you the write-up that they generated for their session. The speakers were: Peter Winn, Assistant U.S. […]
By Daniel J. Solove The US regulates privacy with a sectoral approach, with laws that are directed only to specific industries. In contrast, the EU and many other countries have an omnibus approach — one overarching law that regulates privacy consistently across all industries. The US is an outlier from the way most countries regulate […]
I am pleased to announce that Alan Westin’s classic work, Privacy and Freedom, is now back in print. Originally published in 1967, Privacy and Freedom had an enormous influence in shaping the discourse on privacy in the 1970s and beyond, when the Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs) were developed. The book contains a short introduction […]
I’m very excited that the 1st annual Privacy + Security Forum (Oct. 21-23 in Washington, DC) is finally beginning! We have about 190 speakers and 60+ sessions. Session Descriptions: Session Descriptions Guide [link no longer available] Readings: Readings for each session are on our schedule page [link no longer available] Session Times and Location: Session […]