Babyproofing the House Before the Hurricane: Where We are Missing the Mark

Abstract

Americans have felt the impacts of data breaches annually for over a decade. In the past few years, the impact and number of those breaches have increased, compromising millions of Americans’ informational privacy. This Article examines the privacy protections available to Americans and the issues arising from the lack of regulations that specifically protect data privacy. Section I of this Article offers an overview of privacy in American legal history and case law, global regulatory models, and some notable privacy regulations. Section II explores where those regulatory models and the consumer experience are lacking. Section III takes lessons learned from existing privacy regulations and proposes a suggested mitigation for the national data privacy problem. Finally, Section IV provides concluding thoughts.