PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

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The Biggest PR Mistake in Privacy and Data Security Incidents: An Interview with PR Expert Melanie Thomas

by Daniel J. Solove It happens all the time. An organization has a privacy incident or data breach. The news stories proliferate. Cries of “shame on you” reverberate across the Internet. A number of organizations have an incident response plan, but they often don’t have much of a plan for PR. Certain incidents can take […]

How Should the Law Handle Privacy and Data Security Harms?

by Daniel J. Solove In three earlier posts, I’ve been exploring the nature of privacy and data security harms. In the first post, Privacy and Data Security Violations: What’s The Harm?, I explored how the law often fails to recognize harm for privacy violations and data breaches. In the second post, Why the Law Often […]

Do Privacy Violations and Data Breaches Cause Harm?

by Daniel J. Solove In two earlier posts, I’ve been exploring the nature of privacy and data security harms. Post 1: Privacy and Data Security Violations: What’s The Harm? Post 2: Why the Law Often Doesn’t Recognize Privacy and Data Security Harms In this post, I want to explore two issues that frequently emerge in […]

Why the Law Often Doesn’t Recognize Privacy and Data Security Harms

by Daniel J. Solove In my previous post on privacy/security harms, I explained how the law is struggling to deal with privacy and data security harms. In this post, I will explore why. The Collective Harm Problem One of the challenges with data harms is that they are often created by the aggregation of many […]

Follow Professor Solove on Social Media

If you are interested in privacy and data security issues, there are many great ways Professor Solove can help you stay informed: Professor Solove’s LinkedIn Influencer blog You can follow Professor Solove on his blog at LinkedIn, where he is an “LinkedIn Influencer.”  He blogs about various privacy and data security issues. His blog has […]

Facebook’s Psych Experiment: Consent, Privacy, and Manipulation

by Daniel J. Solove This weekend, the results of an experiment conducted by researchers and Facebook were released, creating a fierce debate over the ethics of the endeavor. The experiment involved 689,003 people on Facebook whose News Feed was adjusted to contain either more positive or more negative emotional content. The researchers were looking for […]

Privacy and Data Security Violations: What’s the Harm?

by Daniel J. Solove “It’s just a flesh wound.” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail Suppose your personal data is lost, stolen, improperly disclosed, or improperly used. Are you harmed? Suppose a company violates its privacy policy and improperly shares your data with another company. Does this cause a harm? In most cases, courts […]

Does the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision on the 4th Amendment and Cell Phones Signal Future Changes to the Third Party Doctrine?

by Daniel J. Solove Today, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision on two cases involving the police searching cell phones incident to arrest. The Court held 9-0 in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts that the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant to search a cell phone even after a person is placed […]

Being a Juror Can Result in a Huge Loss of Privacy

by Daniel J. Solove For trial attorneys, a key component to winning is carefully selecting people for the jury and tailoring arguments to best influence, nudge, or perhaps even manipulate jurors into reaching a particular verdict. As a result, there is a hunger to learn about the private lives of jurors, and serving on a […]

How the FTC Can Readily Halt Identity Theft

by Daniel J. Solove Identity theft is terrible crime, and it can wreak havoc on victims’ lives. In an identity theft, the thief uses a victim’s personal information to improperly access accounts, obtain credit in the victim’s name, or impersonate the victim for other purposes. But there is an effective way to stop a lot […]