LAW 7171 :
Law, Economics, Tech: Privacy

This interdisciplinary elective provides students with the theoretical and practical tools to evaluate legal, economic, and public policy issues involving information privacy and surveillance. We start with three basic privacy frameworks: fair information practices, the economic harm framework and privacy as contextual integrity. Then we turn to how privacy is implemeted in the U.S. sectoral system versus Europe's comprehensive privacy regime. Then we turn to the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook as a case study in the border debate about surveillance capitalism, extend the discussion to consider Big Data more generally, and then examine recent legislative efforts at the state level. One theme will be the extent to which privacy concepts evolve with changes in technology. Another will be the difficulty of enforcing differing privacy rules in a globally interconnected world. This semester, we are going to try some new things! Rather than focus on traditional seminar papers in which students articulate and defend a thesis, we will focus on researching and writing an investigative report. You will work in a small groups to investigate and report on a privacy and technology adoption policies and practices at a school district, college or university. Exam Info: No Exam