"In 1973, long before the modern digital era, the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) published a report called "Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens." Networked computers seemed "destined to become the principal medium for making, storing, and using records about people," the report's foreword began. These systems could be a "powerful management tool." But with few legal safeguards, they could erode the basic human right to privacy - particularly "control by an individual over the uses made of information about him.""
"In 1974, Congress passed the Privacy Act, which set some of the first rules aimed at computerized records systems - limiting when government agencies could share information and outlining what access individuals should have. Over the course of the 20th century, the Privacy Act was joined by more privacy rules for fields including healthcare, websites for children, electronic communications, and even video cassette rentals."
In 1973 the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare warned that networked computers would become the principal medium for making, storing, and using records about people and that such systems could erode individual control over personal information. In 1974 Congress passed the Privacy Act to limit agency data sharing and to define individuals' access rights. Additional sectoral privacy rules followed across healthcare, children's websites, electronic communications, and other areas. In recent decades digital surveillance by governments and private companies has grown dramatically while Congress has repeatedly failed to update comprehensive privacy protections.
#privacy-law #government-surveillance #corporate-surveillance #congressional-policy #data-protection
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