Information privacy laws are designed to ensure protection of information on private individuals from disclosure, misuse or abuse.
In the USA the Office of Technology Assessment in the face of increasing concern over the threat of electronic surveillance has developed the Code of Fair Information Practice.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act came into force on 21st August, 1996. Under the provisions of the said Act the use and disclosure of health information of an individual must be authorized or consented to by him.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act invokes the principles of the Code of Fair Information Practice to credit rating agencies. By virtue of this law each person can obtain free an annual credit report. This Act empowers the consumers to view, contest, correct and limit the uses of credit report. A credit agency is obliged to ask the requestor the purpose of requested information.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act similarly prevents disclosure of a consumer’s financial transactions. The creditors or their agents are precluded in law from disclosing that the concerned individual is indebted to a third party.
Unlike the USA which relies on industry specific laws and self regulation for privacy protection, the European Union has comprehensive privacy legislation in place. The European Directive on Data Protection, which came into force in October 1998 mandates for setting up government data protection agencies, registration of databases with those agencies and in some cases provides for prior approval before personal data processing could begin.
In order to reconcile these differences in data privacy laws, the US Department of Commerce has worked out a ‘Safe Harbor’ framework in consultation with the European Commission. In July, 2000 the European Commission approved the ‘Safe Harbor’ framework, which since then is the corridor for US companies working with database from the European Union to comply with European privacy laws.
The following is a list of some of laws on the protection of information system networks:
• 1970 U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act
• 1970 U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act
• 1974 U.S. Privacy Act
• 1984 U.S. Medical Computer Crime Act
• 1984 U.S. Federal Computer Crime Act (amended in 1986 and 1994)
• 1986 U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (amended in 1986, 1994, 1996 and 2001)
• 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
• 1986 U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)
• 1987 U.S. Computer Security Act
• 1988 U.S. Video Privacy Protection Act
• 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act
• 1996 U.S. Economic and Protection of Proprietary Information Act
• 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
