Laws Governing Personal Private Information

Information privacy or data privacy has become a very hot topic in today's circles because of the importance attached to it. Information privacy can be defined as the relationship that exists between data collection and how that data is presented to the public, or how that data is stored after its collection. Because of the widespread use of internet, both at home and in public, more and more people are concerned on how information shared with other users is used. Most users of the data collected are employers, financial institutions, schools, justice departments and many others. Because of such concerns, laws have been formulated to deal with information privacy and ways to collect and protect such information although data privacy is not highly regulated in the United States.

The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act

The Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" or GLB Act, includes provisions to protect consumers' personal financial information held by financial institutions. There are three principal parts to the privacy requirements: the Financial Privacy Rule, Safeguards Rule and pretexting provisions. The GLB Act gives authority to eight federal agencies and the states to administer and enforce the Financial Privacy Rule and the Safeguards Rule. These two regulations apply to financial institutions, which include not only banks, securities firms, and insurance companies, but also companies providing many other types of financial products and services to consumers (Kelly, 2005). In this article, author Christy Kelly, says the current trend offers "many reasons [why] all companies need to consider the security of the data they collect from their customers" (Kelly, 2005)

The Fair Credit Reporting Act

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, promotes accuracy in consumer reports and is meant to ensure the privacy of the information in them. Most companies in the United States collects and uses consumer information from the three registred consumer report bureaus for employment, lending, insurance and other charges. Writing in the CPA journal, Carl Pacini and Katherine Barker writes that "The FCRA requires that whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report, it must follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates" (Pacini, 2010).

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act

Children's online privacy has dominated the news media for the past few years. With the advent of online gaming and social media, more and more children are accessing online content more than ever before. With such access comes the challenge of protecting their privacy to hoodlums who lurks in dark rooms on the internet world to lure them in giving away vital private information. Most companies are using the internet to collect children information so that they can sell products to them (Bartoli, 2009). This becomes a challenge to parents who wants their kids to learn, with the ever increasing busy schedules that limit parent's time with the kids. The alternative is to use online resources for more learning, or homework help, with peer sharing becoming a common online tool for the kids. Bartoli sees this as a challenge. The act applies to commercial websites and online services targeting children aged under 13 and to general websites that have actual knowledge that they may collect data from children aged under 13.

Health Breach Notification