AFFIRMATIVE-SOLVENCY-INFORMATION OWNERSHIP — PROPERTY RIGHT 20

PRIVACY SHOULD BE A PROPERTY RIGHT

THERE SHOULD BE A PROPERTY RIGHT TO PERSONAL DATA

James Rule & Lawrence Hunter, Prof. of Sociology at SUNY-Stony Brook & Computer Scientist at (U.S.) National Library of Medicine, "Toward Property Rights in Personal Data," VISIONS

OF PRIVACY: Policy Choices for the Digital Age, 1999, EE2001 -JGM) P. 170

Yet we believe that creation of one such delimited right has great promise as a tool - just one legal tool, we stress, among many - for protecting personal data. We propose creating a property right over commercial exploitation of personal information. This right would pertain to the sale or trade of personal data for use in selling products or services or in setting the terms of commercial dealings with the people described in the data. Under the right we envisage, every citizen would own the rights over such forms of commercial exploitation of information about himself or herself. These rights could be exercised or ignored by the data subject; they could also be retained or sold, much like mineral rights, development rights, or air rights. In envisaging such a right, we join Kenneth Laudon and other privacy specialists who have sought to apply property concepts to the protection of personal data.'

YOU SHOULD OWN THE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, July 6, 1999, SECTION: Editorial; Pg. 6A TITLE: Editorial; Technology threatens privacy; Individuals deserve personal copyright for intimate details that companies collect. // acs-EE2001

Your personal information is yours. You generate it, you own it, you should be able to determine how it's used. In essence, you ought to have a personal copyright on it. In Europe, where governments have made that the central premise of their privacy approach, it has produced policies that allow individuals to control the flow of their personal information. If the United States does not take a similar approach soon, it will be too late.

COMPANIES JUST TOOK PERSONAL DATA, THEY HAVE NO ESTABLISAHED OWNERSHIP OVER IT

Michelle Singletary The Washington Post, January 31, 1999, SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. H02; TITLE: Whose Information Is It, Anyway?; Consumers Have Few Rights to Privacy of Personal Data // acs-EE2001

My question is, who gave companies that right in the first place?

"Nobody," answered Edmund Mierzwinski in a matter of fact tone. Mierzwinski is consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. "Our personal information has been sliced and diced, and over the years our rights to it have been taken away. Just because it's in their data base they think it's theirs.

"Companies just took it. They just took the right to sell our personal information," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, when I put my question to him.