Spring 2023 Course Descriptions

CS 183-01 Privacy in the Digital Age

D. O'Brien

This course will provide an introduction to the legal and regulatory protections for personal data and the evolving nature of digital surveillance and online privacy. The class will cover public and private sector threats to privacy and look at how different countries have implemented both privacy protections and surveillance regimes that affect individual Internet users and govern the collection of their personal data. Topics to be covered include encryption policy, law enforcement access to data, intelligence agency access to data, the European General Data Protection Regulation, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, domestic and international lawful interception of data, protections for geolocation data and other forms of metadata, and facial recognition technology. This course will primarily focus on law and policy measures related to privacy but it will also cover some basic technical material related to cryptography and networking that is relevant to understanding the impacts of different policies.


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