An empirical study of privacy harms in data violation cases
Muhawe, Christopher
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121318
Description
Title
An empirical study of privacy harms in data violation cases
Author(s)
Muhawe, Christopher
Issue Date
2023-06-30
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Bashir, Masooda
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Bashir, Masooda
Committee Member(s)
Allen, Anita L.
Rowell, Arden
Heald, Paul J
Department of Study
Law
Discipline
Law
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
J.S.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
privacy, data, harm, injury, Article III, standing.
Abstract
Many statutes in the United States recognize that privacy violations cause harm in addition to some providing a private right of action to enforce privacy rights. However, scholars have conjectured that the judicial doctrine of Article III standing could create a procedural impediment to remedying privacy harms. Using a unique dataset, this research investigates the data privacy litigation landscape of the American federal courts considering the strict Article III injury-in-fact requirement. The results reveal a significant gap: close to 60% of the federal court cases from 2000 to 2020 were dismissed for failure to satisfy the strict injury-in-fact threshold. This empirical analysis thus reveals a significant gap between what the legislature intends for privacy protection to do (and what privacy statutes provide for on their face), and the actual landscape of privacy protection as interpreted by the courts. With this mismatch, the net losers are the data subjects. The ideals of personal privacy— which include rights to limited and controlled access to personal information— are imperiled with little to no legal recourse.
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