PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

high-tech technology background with eyes on computer display

NBC Think Again Interview

  NBC Think Again did a short feature about my article, “I’ve Got Nothing to Hide and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy.”  In this interview we talk about what privacy really means and how little of it we actually have. Click here to watch this interview, or watch it in the embedded video below.

Full Text of My Book, NOTHING TO HIDE: THE FALSE TRADEOFF BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECURITY

I’m delighted to announce that I have posted the full text of my book, NOTHING TO HIDE: THE FALSE TRADEOFF BETWEEN PRIVACY AND SECURITY (Yale University Press 2011) on SSRN for free. With the press’s permission, I’m posting the entire book on SSRN, free for personal use. Students assigned the book for a class may […]

Panoptic Surveillance and Privacy’s Future: An Interview with Oscar Gandy

Back in 1993, Professor Oscar Gandy, Jr. wrote one of the most insightful and prescient books about privacy: The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information. Oscar Gandy is an emeritus professor with the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, having retired from active teaching in 2006. He has continued to publish in […]

Privacy at the Margins: An Interview with Scott Skinner-Thompson on Privacy and Marginalized Groups

Privacy at the Margins 01

Recently, Professor Scott Skinner-Thompson (Colorado Law) published an excellent thought-provoking book, Privacy at the Margins (Cambridge University Press, 2020), which explores the important role that privacy plays for marginalized groups. The book is superb, and it is receiving the highest praise from leading scholars. For example, Dean Erwin Chemerinksy (Berkeley Law) proclaims that the book […]

Schrems II: Reflections on the Decision and Next Steps

Schrems II - US Surveillance Law

Professor Paul Schwartz and I recently edited the Schrems II decision for our Information Privacy Law casebook.  Schrems II is short for Facebook Ireland Ltd. v. Maximillian Schrems — the second challenge by Maximillian Schrems to the transfer of data between the EU and US.  In Schrems I, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) invalidated the Safe […]

Cartoon: Facial Recognition

Cartoon Facial Recognition -- TeachPrivacy Privacy Training 02 small

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) […]

The Supreme Court on Smart Phones: An Interview of Bart Huffman about Law and Technology

The U.S. Supreme Court has been notoriously slow to tackle new technology. In 2002, Blackberry launched its first smart phone. On June 29, 2007, Steve Jobs announced the launch of the original Apple iPhone. But it took the Supreme Court until 2014 to decide a case involving the Fourth Amendment and smart phones – Riley […]

Carpenter v. United States, Cell Phone Location Records, and the Third Party Doctrine

Carpenter v US - cell-site location information 02

The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision in Carpenter v. United States, an important Fourth Amendment case that was eagerly awaited by many. The decision was widely cheered as a breakthrough in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence — hailed as a “landmark privacy case” and a “major victory for digital privacy [link no longer available].”  In the NY […]

10 Reasons Why the Fourth Amendment Third Party Doctrine Should Be Overruled in Carpenter v. US

10 Reasons to Overrule the Fourth Amendment Third Party Doctrine

The U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing arguments this week in Carpenter v. United States, which is one of the most important Fourth Amendment cases before the Court.  The case involves whether the Third Party Doctrine will remain viable.  If so, the Fourth Amendment will fade into obsolescence in today’s digital age. In this post, […]

Cartoon About Connected Devices

Cartoon Connected Devices - Internet of Things

This cartoon depicts the potential future of the Internet of Things.  As more and more devices are connected to the Internet, including ones implanted in people’s bodies, increasing thought must be given to the privacy and security implications.  The speed of technological development is moving at a far greater pace than the speed of policy […]