**Historical Development of Privacy Policies**:
– In 1968, the Council of Europe and OECD began studying technology’s impact on human rights and personal information implications.
– Convention 108 in 1981 and privacy laws in Sweden, West Germany, and France established early protections for personal data.
– The Fair Credit Reporting Act in the late 1960s allowed consumers to correct credit file errors.
**Current Privacy Policy Enforcement**:
– The EU Data Protection Directive and US FTC’s Fair Information Principles were introduced in 1995.
– The US lacks a federal regulation for universal privacy policy implementation.
– Enforcement is carried out through the FTC Act, allowing private parties to enforce policies through class action lawsuits.
**Applicable Laws and Regulations**:
– Various laws like COPPA, HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA govern privacy policies in specific circumstances in the US and EU.
– The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act regulates financial institutions’ information-sharing practices.
– PIPEDA in Canada and the Privacy Act 1988 in Australia provide legal frameworks for privacy protection.
**Privacy Policy Concerns and Consumer Behavior**:
– Studies show that consumers prioritize price over privacy and may not understand privacy policies.
– Length and complexity of policies hinder readability, and deceptive trade practices in policy terms have been noted.
– Efforts to simplify information may reduce clarity on data sharing, impacting trust and transparency.
**Compliance, Certifications, and Trends in Privacy Policies**:
– Compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA is crucial, with privacy seals and certifications like Trust Guard and WebTrust enhancing trust.
– Trends like the P3P project, Privacy Policy Referencing, and tracking policy changes at tech giants by organizations like TRUSTe are shaping the future of privacy policies.
– Understanding consumer behavior and privacy preferences is essential for businesses to build trust and ensure data protection.
A privacy policy is a statement or legal document (in privacy law) that discloses some or all of the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer or client's data. Personal information can be anything that can be used to identify an individual, not limited to the person's name, address, date of birth, marital status, contact information, ID issue, and expiry date, financial records, credit information, medical history, where one travels, and intentions to acquire goods and services. In the case of a business, it is often a statement that declares a party's policy on how it collects, stores, and releases personal information it collects. It informs the client what specific information is collected, and whether it is kept confidential, shared with partners, or sold to other firms or enterprises. Privacy policies typically represent a broader, more generalized treatment, as opposed to data use statements, which tend to be more detailed and specific.
The exact contents of a certain privacy policy will depend upon the applicable law and may need to address requirements across geographical boundaries and legal jurisdictions. Most countries have own legislation and guidelines of who is covered, what information can be collected, and what it can be used for. In general, data protection laws in Europe cover the private sector, as well as the public sector. Their privacy laws apply not only to government operations but also to private enterprises and commercial transactions.
- For Wiktionary's privacy policy, see wikimedia:Privacy policy.
English
Etymology
- privacy + policy
Noun
privacy policy (plural privacy policies)
- (law) A statement detailing policies that an organization or party uses to collect or hide information about an end user or customer of the organization, particularly where it concerns private information.
