LLAW 3075
Privacy and data protection (6 credits)
This course will consider the question of protection of privacy by the common law, bills of rights, the constitution, with particular reference to electronic surveillance and the conflict between privacy and free speech, including problems related to the Internet. Specific issues to be discussed will include: the concept of ‘privacy’ and the genesis and development of its political, philosophical and economic underpinnings, background to the legislation; existing common law and statutory protection: the equitable remedy for breach of confidence, defamation, copyright, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, the public interest, remedies, electronic surveillance, interception of communications, telephone tapping under the Telecommunication Ordinance, the protection of ‘personal information’, the data protection principles, data matching and PINS, access rights, transborder data flow, the Privacy Commissioner: powers, functions, exemptions from the principles, the sectoral codes, the international dimension: UN Guidelines, Council of Europe Convention and OECD Guidelines, Council of the EC draft directive, Articles 17 and 19 of the ICCPR, Article of the BORO, the ECHR, and the Internet and the protection of personal information.