Title: 1.1 The Law
Course: Information and Communication Technology: Module B > Section: Section 1 - Telecommunications and Network Basics

1.1.1 Privacy Laws

Privacy laws were written to address what types of information can (and cannot) legally be collected by governments, private organizations and the public. Examples include:

- health privacy laws
- financial privacy laws
- online privacy laws
- communication privacy laws
- information privacy laws
- privacy in one's home

Laws that pertain to your privacy and how online information is used continue to evolve:

- Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970—gives individuals the right to see information collected about them. It also restricts the types of groups that have access to personal credit data.
- Privacy Act of 1974—restricts the way personal data can be used by federal agencies.
- Financial Privacy Act of 1978—requires government authorities to have a subpoena, search warrant, or summons to access financial data.
- Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA)—makes it a crime to access electronic data without authorization.
- The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules—provides federal protection for personal health information and gives patients specific rights with respect to health information. At the same time, the Privacy Rule is balanced so that it permits disclosure of health information needed for patient care and other important purposes.
- The United States Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)—protects underage children's privacy by either restricting a child from sharing data without a parent's permission or not allowing the child to access certain pages that collect data.  COPPA currently applies to online services and web sites that can be accessed by children under the age of 18 and collect their information.

1.1.2 Copyright Laws

Copyright is a form of legal protection provided to authors of "original works of authorship" including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, architectural, and certain other types of intellectual property.

Plagiarism is the act of stealing and passing off someone else's ideas, words, or other intellectual property as one's own. For example, using photos or words from an article without citing the source is an act of plagiarism.

Since it began, the Internet has been described as the largest threat to copyright protection. The Internet is loaded with information but the degrees of copyright protection vary enormously.

Copyrighted works on the Internet include:

- news stories
- software
- novels, books, and screenplays
- graphics and pictures
- email
- audio and video
- webpages and their coding

Many people mistakenly assume that if a work has no copyright notice, it is not protected by copyright laws and therefore free to use or copy. That is false. In fact, since the rules were set up by the Berne Copyright Convention on April 1, 1989, every original work that is posted on the Internet is copyrighted by the owner or author—whether it has a copyright notice or not. All Internet users must assume that the work is copyrighted, unless specifically stated by the author.

Please complete assignment 1.1.1 in your lab manual.