TORT OF APPROPRIATIONS

Tort of Appropriations

Tarrence A. Thrash

University of Maryland University College

Introduction

Today everyone collects information about you. You are constantly being asked for your name, age, date of birth, postal and email address, telephone number, etc. This information is collected physically or electronically. Do you know what treatment will be given to your information? Do you know what laws protect you against theft of your information and how to protect yourself with them? In my research paper I answer these questions, deal with the misappropriations of the right to publicity, explore and define the tort of appropriation and explore how this law can be used by individuals to protect their names or identities. I will also highlight cases that deal with this issue.

The right to privacy is fundamental. It is the cornerstone of a democratic society and all its laws, whether they be the secrecy of the vote, the confidential relationship between doctor/patient or attorney/client, as the principle of private property or individual freedom. So how is it that the protection of privacy has become one of the burning questions of the early twenty-first century?

The answer in my opinion is due to the development of new technology. New technology has allowed governments and businesses to collect, store, and use private information like never before. According to Phone Busters National Call Center in 2003, over 13,000 Americans were victims of identity theft, resulting in a total cost of over $21 million. In 2002, there were only 7,600 cases reported.

In 1996, Bruce Phillips, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner said "A lot of elements that constitute the personality of a human being are now for sale or purchase and gives rise to a huge traffic. Governments and commercial companies want to know as much as they can about all of us" (Cheeseman, 2010). The development of new technologies of information and communication allows governments and businesses to collect, remember and "use" as never before has a growing amount of personal information. By 1996, Bruce Phillips, Privacy Commissioner when the Privacy Commissioner of USA, was worried: "A lot of elements that constitute the personality of a human being are now for sale or purchase and gives rise to a huge traffic. Governments and commercial companies want to know all of us or almost". Since then, stories have emerged incredible unforeseen consequences of this trade in personal informati

Some private companies can gather and use its customers information improperly, for example, a funeral home, which obtained the names and addresses of victims of cancer, sent them advertisement for prepaid burial services. 

The humiliation, discrimination and economic consequences of such practices raise serious questions about the impact of new technologies on individual liberty, social relationships and democracy.

According to sociologist David Lyon (2006) pervasive surveillance results are a kind of "social sorting" by computer, a classification of individuals into hierarchical groups which only strengthen the existing social divide (ethinic conflict and racism). For his part, John Godfrey, Member of Parliament, said that the invasion of privacy undermines the exercise of other fundamental rights such as freedom of ...