Privacy refers to being free from intrusion—the right to be left alone, to be free from surveillance, and to have control over the information collected and stored about yourself.

Citizens of free and democratic nations expect, at the least, privacy

in their homes.

Privacy

U.S. Privacy-Protective LawsU.S. Privacy-Invasive LawsElectronic Surveillance

Issues > Privacy

In this section:

• Behavioral Targeting• Traffic Shaping• Transparency

U. S. privacy-protective laws refer to legislation designed to protect the private information of U.S. citizens.

U.S. Privacy-Protective Laws

Issues > Privacy > U.S. Privacy-Protective Laws

President Gerald Ford made history when he signed the Privacy Act of 1974 into law. It sets out what kinds of information the government can keep about its citizens and the rights of citizens to know what’s kept about them.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 2000 -gives parents control over what information is collected from their children online, and how such information may be used.

U.S. Privacy-Protective Laws

Issues > Privacy > U.S. Privacy-Protective Laws

It is estimated that approximately 3.6 million users on the popular social media site Facebook are under the age of 12. Almost 50% of children under the age of 13 are using social media sites.

U.S. privacy-invasive laws refer to legislation that is invasive to individual privacy for a perceived greater good of the country.

U.S. Privacy-Invasive Laws

Issues > Privacy > U.S. Privacy-Invasive Laws

Surveillance is the close monitoring of behavior through electronic technologies such as wiretapping, data mining, remote video and audio monitoring, GPS, and RFID.

Surveillance

Issues > Privacy > Surveillance

Global positioning system (GPS) and radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies are very useful, but they lead to GPS tracking and RFID surveillance and can also be used to invade privacy.

Surveillance

Issues > Privacy > Surveillance

Wiretapping involves secretly listening in on conversations taking place over telecommunications networks including telephone, e-mail, instant messaging, VoIP, and other Internet communications.

Data mining refers to the process of extracting information from large databases. Data mining can tell more about a person than all other kinds of electronic surveillance.

Surveillance

Issues > Privacy > Surveillance

Behavioral targeting uses information about a person’s behavior to inform businesses and marketers so that they can offer products that are likely to be of interest to that person.

Network behavioral targeting is the most invasive form.

Behavioral Targeting

Issues > Privacy > Behavioral Targeting

Traffic shaping refers to controlling the flow of network traffic in order to optimize performance by delaying some data packets in favor of others.

The privacy concern arises from the methods that ISPs use to decide which packets to throttle -using deep packet inspection to examine the contents of all data packets traveling over a network may be an issue.

Traffic Shaping

Issues > Privacy > Target Shaping

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has fought to enforce policies to rein in traffic shaping.

Transparency is when a person keeps little or nothing secret from the world; a lifestyle that is supported by technologies such as lifestreaming, geo-location, and microblogging, eg, Twitter.

Transparency

Issues > Privacy > Transparency

Justin Kan, founder of Justin.tv, streams his life over the Web from a video camera and microphone on his cap.