A Cyber Age Privacy Doctrine: A Liberal Communitarian Approach

A privacy doctrine built for the cyber age must address a radical change in the type and scale of violations that the nation — and the world — face, namely that the greatest threats to privacy come not at the point that personal information is collected, but rather from the secondary uses of such information. Often cited court cases, such as Katz, Berger, Smith, Karo, Knotts, Kyllo — and most recently Jones — concern whether or not the initial collection of information was legal. They do not address the fact that personal information that was legally obtained may nevertheless be used later to violate privacy. That the ways such information is stored, collated with other pieces of information, analyzed, and distributed or accessed — often entails very significant violations of privacy. While a considerable number of laws and court cases cover these secondary usages of information, they do not come together to make a coherent doctrine of privacy — and most assuredly not one that addresses the unique challenges of the cyber age.