The issue of privacy in the computer age is a many-faceted problem and the complexities have been perceived and have made it evident that legislation is required to control and direct the development of databases and their use in order to protect individual rights. One of the issues of concern is that of privacy rights and how they may conflict in an age when masses of information on the individual is stored in computers of many different types and for many different purposes, with the potential that this information could be misused, released to non-authorized parties, or linked together to produce profiles of the individual that could then be misused or otherwise made into a violation of the individual's privacy rights.
The right of privacy has been protected in law at every level in various ways and in various degrees, and the computer age threatens the structure of protections because of the sophisticated technology involved and the degree to which it has permeated society. An examination of the way in which the issues have developed shows a patchwork of state actions directed at one aspect or another of the problem, and the variety proves the complexity of the issue. The variety also shows that there is a lack of coordination in addressing the matter and that this has resulted in conflicting laws in different jurisdictions. What is needed is a federal role that will make sense of the issue and that will rationalize the laws regarding privacy and computers.
Computer databases operate nationally and not merely in local areas, and a national response is therefore justified. An overview of the problem of privacy rights abuse by computer and of legal cases involving the issue will show the parameters of the problem, the complexities of the issue and of responses to the issue, and point to a federal solution.
Dockrill (1987) notes that the common law has recognized the protection of certain interests falling under the ...