Privacy law may soon catch up with the reality of the Digital/Social Media Age. Today, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted to amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to require that law enforcement officials obtain a warrant before they access a suspect's personal digital account.
This is the first step in what may become a fundamental change in digital privacy for the United States. The amendment still needs to be passed by the full Senate and then be passed in the House of Representatives and signed into law by President Obama.
While I am hopeful that Congress will act to strengthen privacy laws it is frustrating that it appears that the General Petraeus scandal may have been the catalyst for this issue. The ECPA amendment was attached to HR 2471 which will update the Video Privacy Protection Act.
The bottom line is that if HR 2471 becomes law a warrant will be required to read one's personal digital communications.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2012 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Video Privacy Protection Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Video Privacy Protection Act. Show all posts
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Facebook Sued For Allegedly Violating the Video Privacy Protection Act
Social Media website Facebook was recently sued along with Blockbuster for breaking the Video Privacy Protection Act (USC Title 18 Section 2710) because Facebook was making some type of public notation every time a Texas woman was renting a video from Blockbuster. Apparently, Facebook and Blockbuster had or have some type of partnership that involves an information sharing agreement that allowed video rental information to be shared without the Facebook user's authorization or ability to opt out.
Facebook's information sharing problem was partly due to its Beacon Advertising System that is supposedly being discontinued. Beacon was initially designed as an opt out instead of an opt in system. Therefore, Facebook users needed to be extremely vigilant to keep their personal information private.
The proliferation of social media and social networking sites has made it difficult to keep one's personal details private. Unfortunately, unless there is some type of consumer backlash that forces Congress to pass strong legislation that sets an enforcement mechanism that includes stiff penalties, this type of information sharing will dramatically increase in the near future.
Copyright 2009 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Facebook's information sharing problem was partly due to its Beacon Advertising System that is supposedly being discontinued. Beacon was initially designed as an opt out instead of an opt in system. Therefore, Facebook users needed to be extremely vigilant to keep their personal information private.
The proliferation of social media and social networking sites has made it difficult to keep one's personal details private. Unfortunately, unless there is some type of consumer backlash that forces Congress to pass strong legislation that sets an enforcement mechanism that includes stiff penalties, this type of information sharing will dramatically increase in the near future.
Copyright 2009 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)