PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

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Our Privacy and Data Security Depend Upon Contracts Between Organizations

by Daniel J. Solove Increasingly, companies, hospitals, schools, and other organizations are using cloud service providers (and also other third party data service providers) to store and process the personal data of their customers, patients, clients, and others. When an entity shares people’s personal data with a cloud service provider, this data is protected in […]

10 Reasons Why Privacy Matters

by Daniel J. Solove Why does privacy matter? Often courts and commentators struggle to articulate why privacy is valuable. They see privacy violations as often slight annoyances. But privacy matters a lot more than that. Here are 10 reasons why privacy matters. 1. Limit on Power Privacy is a limit on government power, as well […]

The Year in Privacy 2013 and the Year to Come

by Daniel J. Solove 2013 was a remarkable year in privacy developments. Here are four main trends I saw occurring this year: 1. The heat on the NSA for its broad surveillance programs has been sustained and productive. The Edward Snowden leaks revealed massive NSA surveillance efforts. What is most interesting in the aftermath of […]

Why Metadata Matters: The NSA and the Future of Privacy

 by Daniel J. Solove Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Steve Vladeck have a great piece about why “metadata” matters. It is very much worth reading. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter. Several National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs involve gathering metadata about our communications (the numbers we call or the email […]

Is Privacy Law Constitutional? Is Personal Data Speech?

by Daniel J. Solove Professor Neil M. Richards (Washington University School of Law) has posted a draft chapter of his forthcoming book about privacy law and free speech. It is a fascinating piece — very accessible and engaging. It’s called Why Data Privacy Law is (Mostly) Constitutional. Eyebrows were raised a few years ago when […]

A List of Privacy Training and Data Security Training Requirements in Laws, Regulations, and Industry Codes

by Daniel J. Solove I was recently asked whether I had a list of the various laws, regulations, and industry codes that require privacy and/or data security training.  I know about a number of training requirements, but didn’t have a formal list.  I realized that such a list would be useful, so I created one […]

The Stunning Need for Improvement on Mobile and Cloud Risks

by Daniel J. Solove A recent study by the Ponemon Institute, The Risk of Regulated Data on Mobile Devices and in the Cloud*, reveals a stunning need for improvement on managing the risks of mobile devices and cloud computing services. The survey involved 798 IT and IT security practitioners in a variety of organizations including […]

Higher Education Needs Privacy Officers and Privacy/Security Training

In 2007, Seung Cho, a student at Virginia Tech, killed 32 students and faculty and wounded 17. He then committed suicide. One of the most troublesome things about this incident was that it might have been prevented if school officials and employees had a better grasp of privacy law. Appointed by the state governor, the […]

New Privacy Training Programs: US, EU, and Global Privacy Law

by Daniel J. Solove We have launched several new privacy training programs, including a series with brief introductions to privacy law.  We have completed a privacy training program about US Privacy Law with a video and interactive material / quiz questions.  And we just completed a training program about EU Privacy Law.  This program has […]