Privacy law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Privacy law is the area of law concerning the protecting and preserving the privacy rights of individuals. By definition, most countries treat privacy as the rights of individuals and not institutions. The governments and other organizations collect vast amounts of personal information for a variety of purposes. The law of privacy limits how these organizations can collect and use this information.
The scope of applicability of privacy laws is called expectation of privacy.
Contents |
[edit] Classification of privacy laws
Privacy laws can be broadly classified into:
[edit] General privacy laws
These laws have an overall bearing on the personal information of individuals and affect the policies that govern many different areas of information
[edit] Specific privacy laws
These laws are designed to protect specific types of information such as health information, financial information, etc. about individuals. Some examples include:
- Health privacy laws
- Financial privacy laws
- Online privacy laws
- Communication privacy laws
- [[Information privacy
[edit] Privacy laws by country
[edit] Australia
In Australia,[1] the federal Privacy Act 1988 sets out principles in relation to the collection, use, disclosure, security and access to personal information. The Act applies to Australian Government and Australian Capital Territory agencies and private sector organisations (except some small businesses). The Office of the Privacy Commissioner is the complaints handler for alleged breaches of the Act. Some Australian States have enacted privacy laws.
The Australian Law Reform Commission [1]is currently conducting an extensive inquiry into privacy law in Australia and is due to report to the Australian Government in March 2008.
More information about Australian Privacy Laws can be found at Federal Privacy Law
[edit] Canada
In Canada, the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act governs the collection, use and disclosure of personal information in connection with commercial activities and personal information about employees of federal works, undertakings and businesses. It generally does not apply to non-commercial organizations or provincial governments. Personal information collected, used and disclosed by the federal government and many crown corporations is governed by the Privacy Act. Many provinces have enacted similar provincial legislation such as the Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act which applies to public bodies in that province.
There remains some debate whether there exists a common law tort for breach of privacy. There have been a number of cases identifying a common law right to privacy but the requirements have not been articulated. [2]
In Erwin Eastmond v. Canadian Pacific Railway & Privacy Commissioner of Canada (June 11, 2004) The Court found that CP could collect Eastmond's personal information without his knowledge or consent because it benefited from the exemption in paragraph 7(1)(b) of PIPEDA, which provides that personal information can be collected without consent if "it is reasonable to expect that the collection with the knowledge or consent of the individual would compromise the availability or the accuracy of the information and the collection is reasonable for purposes related to investigating a breach of an agreement".
[edit] United States
[edit] Health privacy laws
[edit] Financial privacy laws
- Financial Services Modernization Act (GLB), 15 U.S. Code §§ 6801-6810
- Final Rule on Privacy of Consumer Financial Information, 16 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 313
- Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S. Code §§ 1681-1681u
[edit] See also
[edit] Legislation
[edit] References
- ^ List of Privacy Laws
- ^ see for example Somwar v. McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Ltd, [2006] O.J. No. 64 for a discussion on this
