WELCOME TO PRIVACY IN A DIGITAL AGE

This course focuses on personal privacy and addresses the challenge of protecting privacy in an age of information abundance.  The course addresses how new technology, coupled with an emerging ethos of sharing as manifested by the explosive growth of social networking, has empowered government, business and individuals to monitor our everyday lives and collect, aggregate, use and sell personal information on a scale never before imagined. 

Is privacy dead?  Or is privacy simply being redefined in our modern digital world?  Will drones, ubiquitous video cameras, GPS-enabled mobile devices, and the collection of massive amounts of data by the NSA, data brokers, law enforcement and others usher in a new era of around the clock surveillance where our movements and activities are tracked by government and our neighbors alike?  Will facial recognition, DNA databases and other biometric technologies render anonymity a thing of the past?  Has our infatuation with sharing, as embodied by Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Instagram and other social networking sites, fundamentally altered our definition of privacy?  Will our increased concern with terrorism and national security trump our personal privacy? 

These and other questions will be addressed in the context of today’s personal privacy controversies arising from our increasingly global and digitized world.

In addition to the six specific learning objectives identified in the class syllabus, we will take the substantive knowledge gained in the course and apply it in practice to develop strategies you may employ to regain personal privacy in your every day life.