SIE 525 Information Systems Law
INSTRUCTIONS FOR TERM PAPERS
1. Place your name, campus degree program affiliation, physical mailing address, email address and other contact information in the heading as shown in the sample paper below. After you are done writing the response, do a word count and include that in the heading. Unless instructed otherwise, papers should not exceed 5000 words (approximately five to seven pages using the formatting below). Do a page break after the heading information so the first page of your response contains only the heading information.
2. All material in the paper should be left justified as shown (except for long quotes that should be indented). Place double spaces between paragraphs. Do not number your pages.
3. Please number the headings and subheadings in your paper as shown. Subheadings under major heading 1 would be 1.1, 1.2, etc. and sub headings under 1.2 would be 1.2.1, 1.2.2, etc. This numbering scheme greatly facilitates the ability to make articles available on-line because other methods of formatting are more difficult to support. Please use upper and lower case for headings and subheadings as illustrated in the example. (Note: Some assignments will not require an abstract or extensive headings.)
4. Please use endnotes for your article rather than footnotes. References should be cited in the text as (last name of author year of publication, specific page reference if appropriate). Some term papers or exams will have minimal or no references.
5. Because the writing assignments are relatively short, manuscripts should be embedded as text in the body of an email message to the FirstClass mail system. Placing the manuscript in the body of your e-mail message eliminates my need to open a variety of variously formatted attachments. However, you should also save the document as an MS Word, RTF (rich text format), or text document and include that attachment just in case the e-mail message is unreadable. The name of the attached document should include your last name. Send your completed assignment to the First Class Exam Drop for SIE 525. (If not using a First Class client, the address is SIE_525_Exam_Drop@umit.maine.edu) If that message should happen to bounce, ship a copy before the assigned deadline to onsrud@spatial.maine.edu
**************
Note that if the following manuscript were
printed on paper it would have size 12 font Times (Roman) with single spacing.
Left and right margins would be 1 1/4 inch with bottom and top margins of 1
inch.
Sample Paper: Protecting Personal Privacy
in Using Geographic Information Systems
Harlan J. Onsrud, Jeff P. Johnson and Xavier Lopez
Department of Spatial Information Science and Engineering &
National Center for Geographic Information & Analysis
5711 Boardman Hall, Rm. 348
University of Maine
Orono, Maine 04469-5711
(207) 581-2175
FAX (207) 581-2206
(Word Count: 4,953 words)
ABSTRACT
Personal privacy is a social issue of
increasing relevance to the geographic information system (GIS) community. The
power of GIS processing and the crossmatching of geographic datasets with other
datasets are raising strong privacy concerns. This article discusses current
practices and trends in the collection, maintenance, and dissemination of
personal information by government and industry through the use of GIS and
related technologies. It reviews the development of legal rights in privacy,
discusses the societal importance of personal privacy, argues that self
regulation of the use of personal information is a necessary goal for the GIS
community, and describes privacy protection guidelines currently being proposed
by various parties for adoption by the commercial sector and government.
Finally, the article recommends specific privacy protection principles for
adoption and self-imposition throughout the GIS community.
1. INTRODUCTION
GIS forms part of the communications
infrastructure that is emerging in the transition from an industrial to an
information oriented society. Improved geographic information handling
capabilities are continuing to find expanding applications throughout society
and the eventual public and private investment in such capabilities is being
estimated in many billions of dollars. Geographic information systems and their
associated databases are substantially affecting the operation of government and
business. The impact of the technology is immense, which places a heavy social
responsibility burden on those involved with its promulgation. Along with its
positive effects, the negative impacts of the technology and its associated
databases need to be considered. The negative impacts .....
2. LEGAL RIGHTS IN PRIVACY
The ability to store and query large spatial
databases is continuing to expand. Future advances in information technology,
such as the National Information Infrastructure (NII) and multimedia
telecommunications, are likely to further increase the availability of personal
data. Yet the applicability of current privacy law within networked digital
environments is far from clear.
2.1 Common Law
The legal right to privacy in the United
States arose from a Harvard Law Review article written in 1890 by S. D. Warren
and Louis Brandeis. Warren and Brandeis initially defined the right of privacy
as the 'right of the individual to be let alone' and 'the right to one's
personality' (Warren and Brandeis 1890). Over the years .....
2.2 Legislation
In addition to judge-made law, numerous
legislative enactments address privacy in the U.S. at both the federal and state
levels. The major federal privacy statute is the Privacy Act of 1974. The
Privacy Act (1) allows individuals to determine what records pertaining to them
are being collected, maintained, or used by federal agencies, (2) allows
individuals to prevent records obtained for a particular purpose from being used
or made available for another purpose without their consent, (3) allows
individuals to gain access to such records, make copies of them and make
corrections, (4) requires agencies to ensure that any record which identifies
individuals is for a necessary and lawful purpose, and (5) requires agencies to
provide adequate safeguards to prevent misuse of personal information (Privacy
Act of 1974). However, critics argue that the provisions of the act have been
poorly enforced and adhering to privacy protection guidelines has not been a
priority for federal agencies (Flaherty 1989, 331)......
3. CURRENT PRIVACY PROTECTION PRACTICES
Information privacy issues have regularly
been publicized as unwarranted intrusions by information voyeurs peering into
the personal files and lives of celebrities and politicians (Warren and Brandeis
1890, Levinson 1988, Rothfelder 1992). However, ......
..etc...
8. SUMMARY
The vast collection, maintenance and
dissemination of personal information by government and industry has increased
public suspicion that their personal information privacy is eroding. Personal
privacy is an issue that will continue to grow in importance ......
9. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work is based upon work partially
supported by the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA)
under NSF grant No. SBR 88-10917. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or
recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
10. REFERENCES
Berman, J. , and J. Goldman (1989). A
Federal Right of Information Privacy: The Need for Reform. Washington, D.C.:
The Benton Foundation.
Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, Pub.
L. No. 98-549, 98 Stat. 2779 (1984)
Council of the European Communities (1990).
Proposal for a Council Directive Concerning the Protection of Individuals in
Relation to the Processing of Personal Data.
Federal Trade Commission v. American Tobacco
Co., 264 U.S. 298, 44 S.Ct. 336, 68 L.Ed. 696
Flaherty, David H. (1989). Protecting
Privacy in Surveillance Societies. Chapel Hill and London: The University of
North Carolina Press.
Industrial Foundation of the South v. Texas
Indus. Acc. Bd., Tex., 540 S.W.2d 668, 679.
Information Policy Online.
(iia.ipo@his.com) 1.2 (April 1994): item 3
Levinson, Sanford (1988). "Public Lives
and the Limits to Privacy." Political Science and Politics. 21. 2:
263-280.
Privacy Act of 1974, Pub. L. No. 93-579, 88
Stat. 1896 (1974), Pub. L. No. 94-394, 90 Stat. 1198 (1976), Pub. L. No. 95-38,
91 Stat. 179 (1977), Pub. L. No. 100-503, 102 Stat. 2513 (1988)
Prosser, William L. (1960).
"Privacy" California Law Review 48.3: 383-423.
Rothfeder, Jeffrey (1992). Privacy for
Sale: How Computerization Has Made Everyone's Private Life an Open Secret.
New York: Simon and Schuster.
Warren, S.D. , and L. Brandeis (1890).
"The Right to Privacy." Harvard Law Review 4.5: 193-220.