Posts about Privacy and Security Humor by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
This cartoon is about the GDPR’s lawful basis requirement to process personal data. One of the biggest differences between U.S. and EU privacy law is that in the U.S., organizations can collect and use personal data in nearly any way they choose as long as they state what they are doing in their privacy notice […]
This cartoon is about new technology and privacy. With each new technology, there have been outcries that privacy will be lost forever. A while ago, I wrote a post collecting headlines and book covers that proclaimed “the death of privacy” throughout the ages. Despite being under constant threat, privacy has somehow has managed to survive. […]
For Data Privacy Day, here’s a cartoon about the history of privacy. A constant stream of articles and books proclaim that privacy is dead. But people have been saying that privacy is dead for quite some time. This is either the longest death scene in history, or privacy isn’t dying.
Facial recognition technology involves using algorithms to identify people based on their faces. Distinctive details about people’s faces are compiled into “face templates,” which are then stored in a database and used to find facial matches, Facial recognition is quickly being deployed by many companies for various purposes, such as authenticating identity (unlocking smart phones) […]
This cartoon depicts the travails of complying with the CCPA as it rapidly evolves. The CCPA originated when a referendum regarding consumer privacy rights was scheduled to be on the ballot in November 2018. Alastair Mactaggart, the referendum’s sponsor, offered to withdraw it if California passed a law. So, in the summer of 2018, the […]
It is hard to imagine a world without social media. People are increasingly relying on social media to maintain friendships, share photos and happenings with family, and keep current with the news. But there’s a dark side – more superficial relationships, cyberbullying, harassment, hate speech, and manipulation. Social media has become a cesspool of lies […]
Wouldn’t it be nice if companies were completely transparent in their privacy notices? Typically, privacy notices are filled with long clunky prose that manages to say hardly anything meaningful to consumers. These notices are written by lawyers who carefully craft every sentence so that they won’t pin down a company. The drafters of privacy notices […]
This cartoon is about algorithmic transparency. Today, more and more decisions are being made by algorithms. The logic and functioning of these algorithms is increasingly complex and opaque to people. Today, the new buzzwords are “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning.” AI and machine learning represent a number of different but related things, but what they […]
This cartoon depicts the challenges of multi-jurisdictional privacy law compliance. In 2018, organizations scrambled to comply with the GDPR. In 2019, businesses are scrambling to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). And, there will be a new referendum on privacy law in California next year — CCPA 2.0. There’s a flurry of legislative […]
This cartoon depicts how, after the GDPR, countless websites have cookie notices and require agreeing to accept cookies. I find these cookie notices to be form over substance. These notices are virtually meaningless and don’t help consumers. They are a nuisance. They give privacy a bad name because people start to think that privacy is […]