The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity and Love in the Digital Age

UVA law professor Citron (Hate Crimes in Cyberspace) warns in this persuasive and impassioned call for substantive legal protections for private data that “memories of our intimate lives are being created against our will by perpetrators who intrude on the seclusion that we expect, want and deserve.” Noting that “intimate data gets captured whenever we browse, search, or use apps,” Citron contends that the law “hasn’t caught up to address the powerful roles that apps play in our lives.” She cautions that bad actors can “download malware onto our personal devices” and gain “access to our photos, texts and calendars,” and her chilling examples of privacy invasions and acts of exploitation include the story of an Azerbaijani journalist who was threatened with the release of intimate videos if she did not stop investigating political corruption in her country. To address the problem, Citron recommends that “privacy violations should be treated as felonies” and proposes, among other corporate policies, that businesses only be allowed to collect personal data if it is used for “a legitimate business purpose that isn’t outweighed by a significant risk to intimate privacy” and they have obtained “individuals’ meaningful consent to collect their data.” Accessible legal reasoning and galling case studies make this a cogent argument for reform. [em](Oct.) [/em]