Issues

Usable and Useful Privacy Interfaces

Designing privacy interfaces for devices, software, and websites that are easy for people to understand and control is difficult. Designers should shift focus from information to people and their privacy needs.

Privacy Regulation and Innovation Policy

Some claim that privacy regulation threatens innovation, but regulation is appropriate to correct market failures. Privacy regulation could help align markets and ensure that innovation is consistent with social values.

National Security, Surveillance and Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) often decides cases involving a conflict between human rights and surveillance systems intended to protect national security. Surveillance must be necessary and lawful.

“It’s a scavenger hunt”: Usability of Websites’ Opt-Out and Data Deletion Choices

Privacy laws require websites to offer consumers options such as the choice to opt out of advertising or to delete account data. On many sites, these options are poorly labelled and hard to find.

Informing the Design of a Personalized Privacy Assistant for the Internet of Things

Personalized Privacy Assistant (PPAs) will help users manage Internet of Things (IoT) device data collection. The best PPAs will learn from users and offer suggestions from unbiased sources.

The Portability and Other Required Transfers Impact Assessment (PORT-IA): Assessing Competition, Privacy, Cybersecurity, and Other Considerations

One key legal question is whether data should move from A to B, or be prevented from moving from A to B. Requiring the transfer of data can be harmful in some ways and beneficial in others.

Transfer of EU Personal Data to U.S. Law Enforcement Authorities After the CLOUD Act: Is There a Conflict with the GDPR?

United States’ law requires firms to turn electronic evidence over to law enforcement even when the data is stored in another country. The law may conflict with European privacy law, which limits data transfers to foreign governments.

Born in the USA: The GDPR and the Case for Transatlantic Privacy Convergence

Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) imposes privacy rules that differ significantly from privacy policies in the United States. But the GDPR often draws on US sources, revealing that Europe and the US share privacy values.

You Might Be a Robot

Policymakers show increasing interest in regulating robots. However, a "robot" can be hard to define. The increasing pace of innovation makes it hard to apply the plain language of laws to new cases.

Privacy’s Constitutional Moment and the Limits of Data Protection

The United States Congress must decide whether to enact a national privacy law like Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But GDPR-style rules fail to protect against many harms of data overuse.