We desperately need a digital privacy bill of rights. Personal information should be enshrined by law from private companies in the same manner that is it from the government in the 4th amendment.
Proposal for Enshrining Digital Privacy Rights in the United States
To establish a comprehensive framework for protecting digital privacy rights in the United States, this proposal advocates for a constitutional amendment and corresponding laws. It covers both government and private sector handling of individual data and is based on established legal principles, civil rights concerns, and evolving technological realities.
Government Handling of Individual Data
Constitutional Amendment
The proposed constitutional amendment will establish fundamental digital privacy rights, clearly limiting the government’s ability to collect and maintain individual data. The amendment will be built upon key legal and civil liberties precedents, ensuring compatibility with the Fourth Amendment and existing Supreme Court rulings.
- General Principle: No government entity, directly or through proxies, shall maintain personal data on lawful citizens, except under specific and legally defined circumstances.
- Exceptions:
- Existential Threats: Data retention would be permitted for individuals posing existential threats due to public health concerns (e.g., pandemics) or those planning to commit significant crimes, such as terrorism or mass violence.
- Democratic Integrity: Individuals planning or engaging in illegal activities that subvert democratic processes, such as voter fraud or election interference, may be subject to data retention.
- National Security and Public Safety: Data collection would be allowed for national security threats, provided it is subject to rigorous oversight and judicial review.
- Protected Classes: White-collar and violent criminals would generally be protected from indiscriminate data retention, except when they are part of targeted investigations, which would require court approval.
- Required Records: Records of government employees, contractors, lawmakers, lobbyists, and individuals with security clearances would be retained under strict guidelines, with limitations on public access.
Corresponding Laws
Laws will operationalize these principles through specific guidelines, ensuring that data handling by the government is transparent and accountable.
- Data Minimization: Government agencies must adopt strict data minimization practices, retaining only what is necessary under the defined exceptions, and only for as long as required for the specific purpose.
- Transparency and Accountability: Agencies will follow detailed guidelines for data access, use, and retention. An independent Digital Privacy Oversight Commission will oversee compliance and audit processes to prevent abuse.
- State Compliance: Federal law will supersede state laws to ensure uniform standards nationwide, requiring all states to align their digital privacy policies with these federal guidelines.
Private Sector Handling of Digital Data
Constitutional Amendment
The private sector will also be subject to constitutional privacy protections, ensuring that individuals’ digital data is safeguarded from overreach by companies.
- Data Minimization Duty: Private institutions must collect and retain the minimum data necessary for commerce, service delivery, and lawful operations.
- Consent-Based Collection: Data collection for advertising and profiling should be restricted to minimal identifiers (e.g., an ID and date of birth) unless individuals explicitly opt-in to share additional information.
Corresponding Laws
These laws will operationalize the constitutional principles for the private sector, with a focus on practical and enforceable solutions.
- Data Security Obligations: Companies must implement strong security measures (e.g., encryption, regular audits, multi-factor authentication) to protect consumer data. Periodic third-party security audits will be mandatory.
- Opt-In Requirements: For purposes such as advertising, marketing, or insurance profiling, data collection beyond basic identifiers (e.g., IP addresses, geolocation data) must require explicit, informed consent from individuals.
- Prohibition on Future Use Collection: Collecting individual data for unspecified future uses is prohibited, ensuring that companies cannot stockpile data for potential exploitation.
- Industry-Specific Guidelines: To accommodate varying needs across industries, sector-specific standards will be established, particularly for sectors like healthcare, finance, and telecommunications. These standards will offer flexibility but impose measurable benchmarks for compliance.
Compromise Positions and Anticipated Opposition
To navigate political and legal opposition, we anticipate concerns from key stakeholders and offer compromise positions to balance privacy protection with legitimate concerns.
1. National Security Advocates:
- Concern: National security advocates may argue that strict limitations on government data collection could hinder efforts to prevent terrorism or foreign interference.
- Compromise: Include provisions for emergency data retention under clearly defined circumstances with judicial oversight. When dealing with national security, agencies would require court orders (similar to FISA courts) and would be subject to oversight by the Digital Privacy Oversight Commission.
2. Law Enforcement:
- Concern: Law enforcement may argue that data retention rules could impede criminal investigations, particularly in the case of serious crimes like cybercrime or human trafficking.
- Compromise: Allow narrowly targeted data collection for criminal investigations, but only with a warrant or court order. Data must be destroyed after a predefined period if not tied to ongoing legal proceedings.
3. Private Sector (Tech and Advertising Industries):
- Concern: Tech companies and advertisers might argue that restrictions on data collection could hurt innovation and limit personalization of services.
- Compromise: Allow for tiered consent mechanisms where consumers can opt-in to share additional data for enhanced services, such as personalized recommendations or offers. This creates a balance between user autonomy and business needs. Additionally, companies can still utilize anonymized or aggregated data for research and development.
4. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs):
- Concern: Smaller businesses might struggle with the compliance costs of adhering to new data security obligations.
- Compromise: Introduce compliance assistance programs such as tax credits, grants, or low-interest loans for SMEs to help them upgrade their data protection infrastructure. Simplified regulatory requirements could also apply for businesses below a certain revenue threshold, as long as they adhere to the core principles of data minimization and consent.
5. Civil Liberties Advocates:
- Concern: Civil liberties organizations might express concerns that exceptions for national security and law enforcement could lead to abuse.
- Compromise: Strengthen oversight mechanisms by ensuring that all government data requests are subject to independent review by the Digital Privacy Oversight Commission, and establish an appeals process for individuals who believe their data has been wrongfully collected or retained.
4 Likes
Take a look at the post I made. Reply with any feedback you may have.
3 Likes
Nicely done. Ideally, we’d be able to merge and edit / improve together, similar to wikepedia (gasp lol). Please also note in my post above the very important references to Constitutional Amendment, not just law… and the two very distinct domains of government handling of individual data and private sector handling of individual data. Better to preserve these concepts as we move forward, given the conditions, requirements, exceptions, entities to regulate, etc., are largely distinct.
1 Like
We also need a day of jubilee, where all of our private and contact information is returned as our own property. For years, our information has been bought and sold, and we have ID theft and bothersome emails, calls and texts.
We have a right to control who has our information and all those who contact us should have to ask our permission to use our contact info. Turn the tables and restore our control of this situation.Marketers should not have the right to disturb our peace. If necessary, allow them to still use snail mail with limits.
2 Likes
Also add to that a section of restrictions for data farming. Specifically companies (and government) collecting user data selling it to foreign countries. If it wasn’t so valuable then it wouldn’t be something that would occur as much.
Companies selling our data to foreign countries isn’t beneficial to Americans either. In fact it compromises Americans by allowing other governments access to Americans data. For examples by collecting it they understand which way we are leaning in elections (which has already been proven previously has been done), for military understanding and an understanding of the knowledge level Americans are on.
It may sound silly but you don’t want a foreign country knowing and understanding how Americans think collectively, their strengths, weaknesses and processes of thinking that differ from other countries in the world.
Data collection should be for private companies ONLY and selling data to foreign countries should be punishable by much more than a measly fine.
3 Likes
I agree. I have a background in software engineering and came up with a strong policy that I think will protect our privacy while not inhibiting the openness of the internet.
1 Like
Hi Friends. Just want to point out that this morning President Elect Trump called for a Digital (Privacy) Bill of Rights!!! We need to merge all of our proposals together and get it in front of the right people ASAP!
- TBinGA
2 Likes