Data rights guarantee people protections against misuse or unauthorized use of personal data
These rights are intrinsically tied to the right to privacy established by the United States Constitution. See the following excerpts from Cornell Law’s Legal Information Institute. 1
There is a long and evolving history regarding the right to privacy in the United States. In the context of American jurisprudence , the Supreme Court first recognized the “right to privacy” in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965).
In Griswold , the Supreme Court found a right to privacy, derived from penumbras of other explicitly stated constitutional protections. The Court used the personal protections expressly stated in the First , Third , Fourth , Fifth , and Ninth Amendments to find that there is an implied right to privacy in the Constitution . The Court found that when one takes the penumbras together, the Constitution creates a “ zone of privacy. ”
In addition to the longstanding precedent in the United States, the right to privacy is internationally recognized in Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as other international and regional human rights instruments. 2
| Issue | Summary |
|---|---|
| Commercial surveillance | Data rights should protect us from the misuse of our personal data but technology companies have become increasingly hostile in their collection and monetization of our data with little respect for privacy. This trend, combined with grossly inadequate protections, is increasingly worrisome as advances in technology rapidly expands the information these companies are capable of collecting. Congress MUST enact digital privacy protections that shifts decision-making back to the people. |
| Unwarranted mass surveillance | work in progress |