Privacy and Intellectual Property Rights Index

... links concerned with privacy, intellectual property rights, copyrights, remedies, fair use, myths, etc.

Table of Contents for this page:

• Preface.

• Privacy and Privacy Rights.
• The 1973 U.S. Code of Fair Information Practices.
• Canadian Standards Association's Ten Fair Information Principles.
• The Province of B.C.'s Fair Information Principles as contained in their Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
• Links to privacy-related resources.
• See also items - relating to free speech and CDA of 1996.

• Intellectual Property Rights.

• Related Mailing Lists.

Preface

Privacy and Privacy Rights

One of the issues is the substantial difficulty in describing privacy and the circumstances when it should be protected in different cultures; another issue is the difficulty of implementing effective monitoring and control systems to assure privacy protection of any sort.

In 1972, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare, then Elliot L. Richardson, appointed an Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data Systems to explore the impact of computerized record keeping on individuals. In a report published in 1973, the Advisory Committee proposed a Code of Fair Information Practices. These practices supplied the intellectual and statutory framework for the Privacy Act of 1974, the U.S. federal law regulating the use of personal information by the government, and served as a model for privacy legislation in this country and worldwide. The basic principles of the 1973 Code are as follows:

1. There must be no personal data record-keeping systems whose very existence is secret;
2. There must be a way for an individual to find out what information is in his or her file and how the information is being used;
3. There must be a way for an individual to correct information in his or her records;
4. Any organization creating, maintaining, using, or disseminating records of personally identifiable information must assure the reliability of the data for its intended use and must take precautions to prevent misuse; and
5. There must be a way for an individual to prevent personal information obtained for one purpose from being used for another purpose without his or her consent.

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These principles represent a consensus of stakeholders from the private sector, consumer and other public interest organizations and some Canadian government bodies. Their adoption and use is entirely voluntary; but they may represent a starting point for planned legislation (see source below).

1. Accountability: An organization is responsible for personal information under its control, and shall designate an individual or individuals who are accountable for the organization's compliance with the Code's principles.
2. Identifying Purposes: The purposes for which personal information is collected shall be identified by the organization at or before the time the information is collected.
3. Consent: The knowledge and consent of the individual are required for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information, except where inappropriate.
4. Limiting Collection: The collection of personal information shall be limited to that which is necessary for the purposes identified by the organization. Information shall be collected by fair and lawful means.
5. Limiting Use, Disclosure and Retention: Personal information shall not be used or disclosed for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except with the consent of the individual or as required by law. Personal information shall be retained only as long as is necessary for the fulfilment of those purposes.
6. Accuracy: Personal information shall be as accurate, complete and up-to-date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used.
7. Safeguards: Personal information shall be protected by security safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information.
8. Openness: An organization shall make readily available to individuals specific information about its policies and practices relating to the management of personal information.
9. Individual Access: Upon request, an individual shall be informed of the existence, use and disclosure of his or her personal information, and shall be given access to that information. An individual shall be able to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the information and have it amended as appropriate.
10. Challenging Compliance: An individual shall be able to address a challenge concerning compliance with the above principles to the designated individual or individuals accountable for the organization's compliance.

• the principle that the existence of any government databases containing personal information is known to those whose personal information is contained therein. This is also known as the principle of transparency.
• the principle that the government will minimize the collections of personal information from its citizens, and collect only what is necessary and relevant for government activity to be carried out.
• the principle that the reason the personal information is collected, and the administrative uses of any personal information collected, will be established in advance and made public--this is also known as the principle of transparency.
• the principle of establishing and requiring responsible "keepers" of personal information systems.
• the principle of controlling linkages, transfers and interconnections involving personal information.
• the principles of requiring accuracy and completeness in personal information systems.
• the principle of requiring informed consent for the collection of personal information.
• the principle of protecting against "data trespass" or wrongful disclosure of personal information, including civil and criminal penalties for abuses of that information.
• the requirement for special rules for protecting sensitive personal information.
• the right of access to, and correction of, personal information.
• the right to be forgotten, including the ultimate anonymization or destruction of almost all personal information when the information is no longer relevant.

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• Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Home Page, including information on the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) Act, and links to related websites.

• The Periodical Government Technology(Vol 10; Number 4; April 1997) posts an article in Harry Hammitt's Access Reports column, "Toward a Definition of Privacy" which provides some good insights concerning the difficulty in defining privacy requirements.

• The Business Case for Privacy [cookies (cookie caution)] from CIO Magazine [more cookies (cookie caution)].

• The Graphic, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU) of the Georgia Institute of Technology has released its 7th WWW user survey. The issues listed as the most important by respondents were censorship (34%), privacy (26%), and navigation (13%). Among women, privacy was the top concern.

• The paper "Right to Privacy in the Age of Telecommunication," on the Granite Island Website provides some interesting history on privacy rights in North America in the twentieth century, and some ideas concerning the violation of privacy rights from a surveillance standpoint.

• The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse is a non-profit (originally sponsored by the University of San Diego, and now affiliated with the Utility Consumers' Action Network-UCAN) The purposes of the clearinghouse are posted:
• To raise consumers' awareness of how technology affects personal privacy.
• To empower consumers to take action to control their own personal information by providing practical tips on privacy protection.
• To respond to specific privacy-related complaints from consumers and, when appropriate, refer them to the proper organizations for further assistance.
• To document the nature of Californians' concerns about privacy in regular reports and make them available to policymakers, industry representatives and consumer advocates.

• The Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand hosts a collection of papers which may be of interest.

• The Data Protection Registrar in the U.K. posts a homepage with links to guidance notes, news and events, and the New Data Protection Law (which the European Union requires).

• Personal Information & Privacy-II, a 1991 paper by Simon Davies, Evan Hendricks, Tom Mandel, Willis Ware and Lance Hoffman (chair) a panel discussion at a conference of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility - CPSR. It offers some interesting insights as seen from near the beginning of the decade.

• See also: links relating to free speech on the Internet - the 26 June 1997 unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in finding the Communications Decency Act of 1996 unconstitutional on its face. See the CIEC website, which also posts the syllabus (14 Kb) of the Supreme Court decision (96-511), the unanimous opinion (95 Kb; written by Justice John Paul Stevens) and a concurrence (30 Kb; written by Justices O'Connor and Rehnquist). The initial appeals court decision (12 June 1996) contained an excellent Introduction to the Internet, written for the general reader, which you may also find helpful.

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Intellectual Property Rights Index

• Government Technology in July 1997 posted an article by Dr. Terrence Maxwell {TAMaxwell@aol.com} .. [direct e-mail] , Executive Director of the New York State Forum for Information Resource Management, and editor of the Forum's magazine "Open Forum." Dr. Maxwell's excellent article "The Copyright Conundrum" provides some very good background for this question, beginning with the invention of the printing press. He relates subsequent developments to the current explosion of copying and distribution capability that is allowed by the Internet and digital text.

• 10 Big Myths about Copyright Explained. The author says, "it should be noted that the author, as publisher of an electronic newspaper on the net, makes his living by publishing copyrighted material in electronic form and has the associated biases." It is an easy read; and the summary is concise and helpful.

• ACM Inc., Publications Board, Copyright Policy, ver. 2. This is the (perhaps former) Association for Computing Machinery (I think), in its role as publisher.

• Australian Government Publishing Service - copyright act of 1968, reprinted as of July 1995, with links to ~250 sections.

• Copyright Website. "This site endeavors to provide real world, practical and relevant copyright information of interest to infonauts, netsurfers, webspinners, content providers, musicians, appropriationists, activists, infringers, outlaws, and law abiding citizens. Launched on May Day 95, this site seeks to encourage discourse and invite solutions to the myriad of copyright tangles that currently permeate the Web; The Copyright Website strives to lubricate the machinations of information delivery."

• Copyrights in Cyberspace. This is a component of the Copyright Website, above. "This article originally appeared in the Summer 1994 issue of the Nolo News. The author, Steve Elias, is the editor of Nolo's The Copyright Handbook, by Steve Fishman."

• Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright - Ohio State Usenet Website. This link is to a table of contents listing six sections: Introduction, Copyright Basics, Common Miscellaneous Questions, International Aspects, Further Copyright Resources (including reference to the Tufts University Multilaterals Project where text of the Berne Convention [for the protection of literary and artistic works, of September 9, 1886, completed at Paris on may 4, 1896, revised at Berlin on November 13, 1908, completed at Berne on March 20, 1914, revised at Rome on June 2, 1928, revised at Brussels on June 26, 1948, and revised at Stockholm on July 14, 1967; and protocol regarding developing countries] and the Universal Copyright Convention [as revised at Paris in 1971] can be found), and an Appendix (a note about legal citation form). The six sections contain text without links.

• Stanford University Libraries: Copyright and Fair Use page.

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Related Mailing Lists

• http://www.vortex.com/privacy.html

• listproc@cni.org

• information CNI-COPYRIGHT

 CYBERSPACE-LAW is a free (distribution-only) e-mail Internet seminar for non-lawyers. It will send out one message every 2-3 days about the basic principles of the law of copyright, free speech, libel, privacy, contract, and trademark, as they apply on the Net.

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