Digital Privacy

Digital Privacy

Introduction

The paper aims to investigate that what is the value of the digital privacy and its importance in the technological era, as we have noticed that there are several websites where people can have access to data of US public. There are several issues regarding digital privacy. There are several things that have to be considered while discussing this topic.

The websites like http://www.data.gov/ http://publicrecords.searchsystems.net/ http://www.recordsstore.org/ are providing data to the general public that provide issue for the people who does not want to disclose their data.

Discussion

It is the responsibility of the State to provide best possible privacy to their public as there are several issues regarding this privacy. Although, it become necessary sometimes to give access to the information of public, but not every time (Staples, 2007).

Privacy as guaranteed by the U.S. Cosntitution differs in two significant ways from privacy protected by tort law: (1) the types of acts constituting an invasion of privacy are very different, and (2) the type of protection provided to individuals - constitutional privacy protects against governmental intrusion while tort law primarily protects against invasion by private parties. Fourth Amendment privacy right only apply in those situations where the government is the primary actor. (Acquisti, 2008)

So far it has been understood that the Fourth Amendment cannot be used in private settings and it applies only to governmental entities. Numerous cases had been in the Supreme Court due to the clash of technology and privacy and it seems that these decisions have weakened and possible practically eliminated, an employee's right to privacy in the computerized workplace. (Longworth, Slane, 1997)

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) came about because the Federal wiretap statute failed to provide sufficient protection for modern computer transmission technologies (Espejo, 2011). Even though this statute help, it did not protect against e-mail surveillance, only cell phones were included. Then in 1993 the Consumers and Workers Act was enacted protecting employees while not banning electronic monitoring. The law specifically says that the employee has the right to know and must be given notice while they are being monitored or recorded electronically by the employer on their job.

Increasingly, defenders of human rights and Internet use computers for their work. Although access to technology is still a huge problem worldwide, electronic storage media and communication of information are becoming increasingly common in human rights organizations. However, governments have also developed the ability to manipulate, monitor and alter the electronic information. Surveillance and censorship is increasing, and with it the uncertainty of the information stored or sent digitally is becoming a major problem for / defenders / as human rights in some countries.the main issue identified is the access to private information of US citizen by public.

Concept of Privacy

The conceptualization of privacy is not limited to the protection of information about one's self (informational privacy) but can also encompass notions such as bodily privacy, decisional privacy, relational privacy, communication privacy, and locational privacy. Furthermore, privacy is not considered to be an inviolate ...