When you think about celebrities there is a common misconception that the price of being a celebrity is giving up all of your privacy. That is not exactly true. In fact, Hollywood stars are entitled to protection from intrusion, publication of private information, false portrayals in the media and appropriation of their likeness. What exactly are these protections and are celebs being denied them by the paparazzi in the same way you might be vulnerable to others on social media? Let's have a look here as we begin lesson one of our final module. The best way to think of Privacy Law is not as one cohesive area of law, but rather a patchwork of many different kinds of laws created by many different kinds of legal bodies. For example, you can find privacy protective frameworks in constitutional documents. The 1st and 4th Amendment of the US Constitution protect our intellectual autonomy and right to be free from unreasonable governmental search and seizure. Privacy Law can also be found in statutes enacted by legislators at the federal, state, and even city level. The children's online privacy protection act for instance, regulates the collection and use of children's data. Administrative bodies like the US Federal Trade Commission, Department of Health and Human Services pass and enforce regulations and other rules that protect our personal information. The web is saturated with contracts and privacy policies that dictate what personal data will be collected, how it can be used and what can be done about it. And most relevant to this lesson, judges also recognize that people can bring a cause of action for a legal wrong known as a tort when people pry and publish in ways that violate our privacy. Perhaps the easiest way to think about privacy is to track the three major concepts that implicate our privacy, the media, surveillance, and personal data. Most privacy laws have been developed alongside these three concepts. Regarding the media, the most relevant laws are what we call the four privacy torts, intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure of private facts, misappropriation of name or likeness, and placing someone in a false light. While these torts are not limited to the media, they developed in response to media practices and technologies and some of the most important cases that tested these rules involve journalists and mass communication technologies. Let's take each one in turn. First, perhaps the most intuitive tort is the one protecting against intrusion upon one seclusion. The general census in the US, is that one who intentionally intrudes physically or otherwise upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, but only if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. This of course includes things like peeping toms and those who had listened in on our private phone conversations, but it could also include prying into people's private affairs such as opening someone's private and personal mail, searching her safer wallet, examining someone's private bank account for example. Important questions always seem to arise with this tort such as what does it mean to be secluded, what sorts of intrusions might qualify as highly offensive? The answer to these questions are too complex to answer in this short lesson, but suffice it to say that it always depends upon context. The tort of public disclosure of private facts keeps people from widely spreading your private facts around. The general consensus in US law is that one who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life of another will be held responsible for violating his privacy if the matter publicized would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and is not newsworthy. This is a very difficult tort to prove because it has so many limitations, largely rooted in concerns about our freedom of speech. The tort of misappropriation of name or likeness keeps others from using your face and identity for their own benefits without your permission. The general consensus in the US is that one who appropriates to his own benefit the name or likeness of another will be held responsible for violating his privacy. Although the tort is not limited to commercial uses of your name and face, the common examples are wrongfully using a person's name or likeness to advertise someone else's business or products or for some similar commercial purpose like an unauthorized endorsement of a product. Finally, the tort of false light is concerned with your reputation. The general consensus in US law is the one who gives publicity to a matter that puts someone before the public in a false light will be held accountable for violating his privacy. Importantly, the false light in which the other was placed must be highly offensive to a reasonable person and the actor must have had knowledge of the falsity or recklessly disregarded the truth. This tort is similar to the tort of defamation which protects against libel and slander to your reputation. While these are considered the four major privacy torts in US common law, there are actually a number of additional torts that implicate our privacy interests. These include torts for the breach of confidentiality, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent handling of people's personal information and others. The American tort law system is constantly evolving and adapting to respond to new changes in technology. Have you ever felt like you're being watched? When is it lawful and when is it unlawful to be surveilled or have data records accessed? That is what we'll talk about in lesson 2. [MUSIC]
