GOV 2315: Privacy: Laws, Policy, Technology, and How They Fit Together

This course will begin by examining privacy in different societies, starting with Eastern Europe during the Cold War and moving west. We will look first at privacy and the threats to it from government, then privacy and the threats posed by business. We will consider various technologies (including online social networks, communication Devices, the Internet), and different regimes for protecting privacy (including law, regulation, and technology). The course is designed to develop critical thinking about the interactions between technology, policy, and the law as well as learning about the privacy tradeoffs one makes in using modern technologies. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.