Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision, TransUnion v. Ramirez (U.S. June 25, 2021), prompted me to release this cartoon about privacy harms that I created a while ago.  In TransUnion, a group of plaintiffs sued TransUnion for falsely labeling them as potential terrorists in their credit reports. The Supreme Court held that only some plaintiffs had standing – those whose credit reports were disseminated. Plaintiffs whose credit reports weren’t disseminated lacked a “concrete” injury and accordingly lacked standing – even though Congress explicitly granted them a private right of action to sue for violations like this and even though a jury had found that TransUnion was at fault.

The TransUnion decision, authored by Justice Kavanaugh for a 5-4 majority, is wrong on so many levels. I wish the Supreme Court had read my recent article draft:

Danielle Keats Citron & Daniel J. Solove
Privacy Harms
forthcoming in B.U. L. Rev. 

More background about the article is at my post here. I will write soon about the case.

* * * *

This post was authored by Professor Daniel J. Solove, who through TeachPrivacy develops computer-based privacy and data security training. He also posts at his blog at LinkedIn, which has more than 1 million followers.

Professor Solove is the organizer, along with Paul Schwartz, of the Privacy + Security Forum an annual event designed for seasoned professionals. 

NEWSLETTER: Subscribe to Professor Solove’s free newsletter
TWITTER: Follow Professor Solove on Twitter.

DARK PATTERNS:
A Privacy Training Course

WORKING FROM HOME
TRAINING COURSE