Data Privacy Acts

Information or data privacy is the non-disclosure or misuse of information about private individuals. Data privacy acts were brought on due to the concern for the safety of personal and classified information being transferred across international borders arose in all developing countries. Today, the issue of information and data privacy is still relevant with the use of large social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.), where large amounts of personal information is used and transferred daily across the web. In the United States, there are multiple acts like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), or the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). These acts are just a few implementations of data protection.

Present laws enforcing the protection of information are based on the Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPP) developed in the 1970s by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). The initial development of the FIPP was mainly due to the increase in the use of computers, and sharing of personal information. Here is a list of past and current Data Privacy Acts.