Internet Privacy

EPCA and VPPA

Digital privacy is an important issue in today’s society because of the ability to add evidence to a criminal case, a person’s right to free speech and the potential for potentially saves lives by monitoring this information.  Many privacy laws were written prior to the current technological age, rendering them redundant and useless.  Technology is moving so quickly that many privacy laws written in our current times become irrelevant as soon as they come in effect.

Most digital privacy laws start with the intent to secure other laws of the country it governs.  In the referenced article a statement is made that there are two bills in effect, the Video Privacy Protection Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. (Priver, n.d.)  The VPPA is in essence an amendment to the outdate ECPA as it states clearly what is to be done in regards to electronic video formats.  The ECPA is an older bill which reflects general electronic intrusion when necessary in the court of law.

Regardless of the privacy law, if a person feels that they cannot speak freely in any medium it is in direct conflict of the United States constitution.  Many issues with the electronic laws directly conflict with a person’s individual rights as they feel somewhat harassed and unable to pursue happiness. The article stated that the ECPA will be revisited as it was written in 1988 and that it will receive a thorough run through to update any outdated sections that may no longer be relevant or contain loopholes.

Business monitoring

Although at the corporate level privacy laws are put in place for a reason, the government should have the ability to override and jump into any conversation if it involves saving lives or preventing serious crimes.  The aim of the laws presented for criminal privacy intrusion is sound, but the methods are somewhat vague and it leaves openings for police and law officials to retrieve information from an innocent person.  Business involvement in monitoring activity of both employees and customers should be kept at a minimum.  Laws currently allow businesses not only the ability to collect information but to sell it and transfer it as need be.  Customers should be kept private in all forms of transactions and any information stored about them should be strictly used for their convenience and never for review or abuse.

In this age, the technology to monitor email as the article suggest should be solely available to the government and require a court order with a set of standards that allow the order to be pursued.  Any business or commercial transactions should be at the choice if a consumer and never assumed until a consumer asks them to take such steps. To protect customer information I would propose that the government should have access to a key generating system that allows them to pull a password to decrypt customer information as needed.  The website that allows this kind of access should be one that requires passwords from several members of government branches in order to ensure that it is not abused.

Priver, H (n.d.) Senate Panel Takes Up Electronic Privacy Issues. Retrieved December 2, 2012 from http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2012/11/senate-panel-takes-electronic-privacy-issues/59835/?oref=ng-HPriver