White paper on US data privacy law and legislation

Recently I put together a 15 page white paper titled Data privacy and data protection: US law and legislation. Among the 80 or so references at the end of the paper you will find links to a lot of the federal privacy laws, and some of the articles I cited.

Back in 2002 when I published a book on
data privacy, I asked the cat to "look shy"
and she struck this pose (honest!)

I figured this would be a handy resource for folks looking to learn more about how data privacy works in the US. Of course, some would say data privacy doesn't work in the US, and the white paper is written with that opinion in mind. Frankly, the whole subject is pretty complex and in writing this paper I found out I had been wrong, or at least, not quite right, about quite a few things.

Knowing how data privacy protection has evolved in the US so far should help inform its further progression. Clearly, data protection will continue to evolve in the EU and US with the arrival of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), also known as the European Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR is not discussed in the white paper – the subject probably merits one of its own – I have been clipping news on GDPR here and tweeting it here)

For more on the white paper, which was made possible by ESET, visit the We Live Security website, and be sure to sign up for regular news on all manner of data privacy and cybersecurity topics by email.

If a white paper is too much and you're just getting started in your data privacy reading, here are some good places to start:

• The Electronic Privacy Information Center or EPIC has information about US privacy legislation
• The FTC has a role in Protecting Consumer Privacy
• Privacy issues are addressed at the Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF
• The resource page at International Association of Privacy Professionals
• The Privacy Library at StaySafeOnline.org
• To compare the US and other countries try the Global Data Protection Handbook
• The National Conference of State Legislatures covers state privacy law:
  • Privacy Protections in State Constitutions
  • Security Breach Notification Laws
  • State Laws Related to Internet Privacy