I’m happy to announce that Paul Schwartz and I have just published updated versions of our line of paperback privacy law casebooks. These paperbacks are excerpted parts of our Information Privacy Law casebook, which we recently published in a new 7th edition. This new edition of the casebook has been revised to include the California Consumer Privacy Act, the GDPR, Carpenter, state biometric data laws, and many other new developments.
I’m happy to announce that I just published a new children’s book called The Eyemonger. I believe that this is the first work of children’s fiction about the topic of privacy.
About the book:
In a faraway land, a stranger arrives with promises of greater security in exchange for sacrificing privacy. His name is The Eyemonger, and he has 103 eyes. With the help of flying eye creatures, he spies on everybody. But his plan soon starts to go wrong. His constant watching makes people feel uncomfortable and stifles their creativity. When people complain, The Eyemonger asks: “Do you have something to hide?” The Eyemonger eventually encounters an artist who resists his surveillance and teaches him an important lesson about the value of privacy.
The topic of privacy is rarely covered in children’s books. Written by the international privacy expert Daniel J. Solove, the Eyemonger discusses privacy in a way that children can understand. Ryan Beckwith’s rich and detailed illustrations create a fascinating gothic world of curiosity and wonder.
Solove debuts in children’s literature with an age-appropriate, delightfully illustrated story concerned with issues of privacy. . . . Solove’s underlying theme and catchy rhymes sit perfectly on the cusp of children’s and middle-grade reading levels, and Beckwith’s eye-catching and brilliantly detailed illustrations will inspire young imaginations to soar. Solove’s background in privacy law is on clear display through the clever manipulation of the Eyemonger—who preaches “If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear”—until he at last understands that inspiration and creativity come to a standstill under his vigilance. . . . Beckwith’s evocative illustrations create a gaslit, vaguely steampunk mood that will remind readers of classic adventure tales even as the story takes on complex themes of consent and creativity. Despite the divergence from more traditional storybook lessons, the concept of government overreach presented in this uniquely cautionary fantasy will educate children and their caregivers as well.
I had a great conversation about the future direction of privacy in the next four years with Cam Kerry (Brookings), Alexandra Reeve Givens (CDT), and Justin Antonipillai (Wirewheel). This video is part of Wirewheel’s Spokes Conference. Check out the video here:
Join Wirewheel’s Spokes Conference (Dec. 1-2, 2020) for other great sessions!
Developed from the casebook Information Privacy Law, this paperback contains key cases and materials focusing on privacy issues related to the GDPR and data protection in the European Union. Topics covered include the GDPR, Schrems cases, the right to be forgotten, and international data transfers. The book also contains key excerpts from the GDPR.
This book is designed for use in courses and seminars on comparative and international law, EU law, privacy law, information law, and consumer protection law.
Topics covered include:
GDPR
Schrems I and Schrems II cases
The right to be forgotten
International data transfers, including an account of the rise and fall of the Privacy Shield
I’m pleased to announce that the new 7th edition of my Information Privacy Law casebook is in print.
The Seventh Edition of Information Privacy Law has been revised to include the California Consumer Privacy Act, the GDPR, Carpenter, state biometric data laws, and many other new developments.
New to the Seventh Edition:
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
Carpenter v. United States
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
State biometric data laws
New FTC enforcement actions, including Facebook
Schrems II
New materials on privacy and feminism, civil rights, poverty, and social class
New material on the TCPA, COPPA, and the First Amendment
It was inevitable. On Monday, Zoom joined an exclusive club of tech companies – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, Uber, Snap, and more. This club involves companies that have been under a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) consent decree. In a weird sense, for tech companies, being enforced against by the FTC for a privacy or security violation has become an initiation ritual to being recognized in the pantheon of the tech company big leagues.
As is the typical process, the FTC announced a complaint and consent order against Zoom for a violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. More specifically, the FTC charged Zoom with unfair and deceptive data security practices related to encryption and efforts to bypass browser security safeguards.
I am excited to announce a new GDPR training course — the General Data ProtectionRegulation (GDPR) — extensive version (20 mins). My existing course is a shorter 7 min introduction; this new 20-min course provides a more detailed overview of the GDPR.
If you’re interested in evaluating the new 20-min GDPR course (or the existing 7-min GDPR course), please fill out the form on our GDPR training page.
Below is an outline of the new 20-min GDPR course.
Use the form on our GDPR training page if you want to evaluate the course for your organization or go to the TeachPrivacy store if you want to take the course for yourself.
I had an excellent conversation about the privacy implications of AI and machine learning with Igor Jablokov, CEO, Pryon, and one of the masterminds behind Amazon’s Alexa and Justin Antonipillai, CEO and Founder, WireWheel. Check out the video of our conversation here:
In this video, Justin Antonipillai (Wirewheel) and I discuss the CPRA and its potential effects with Alastair Mactaggart (Californians for Consumer Privacy). Mactaggart’s referendum sparked the passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2018. This year, he has another referendum (Proposition 24) called the Californian Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), which aims to amend and strengthen the CCPA.
In Facebook Ireland Ltd. v. Maximillian Schrems (Schrems II) (July 16, 2020), the European Court of Justice (CJEU) invalidated the Privacy Shield, a widely-used method to transfer personal data from the EU to the US. The decision also put other data transfer mechanisms—Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) and Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs)—into significant doubt. The court’s concern was the deficiency of the US law’s regulation of government surveillance, and this concern is difficult to fix with better contracts or stricter binding rules. The decision has thus left great uncertainty about how most forms of personal data transfer can occur from the EU to the US.
