Açıqlama:

21st century can be surely called an era of digital and technological innovations. Information technologies have deeply penetrated almost every sphere of our lives. Nowadays, information is one of the most valuable assets the state, organizations or individuals can possess. Because of the importance of data in the hands of businesses, organizations and states, collection, processing, use and retaining of personal data poses certain significant risks. To cope with unauthorized collection of data and to provide a legal framework within which operations on data may be carried out, many jurisdictions enacted comprehensive and detailed data protection acts. Unlike those jurisdictions, the U.S. has no single data protection legislation, and a mix of laws enacted on both federal and state levels serve to protect the personal data of U.S. citizens and other subjects. Also, guarantees offered by these statutes differ from one state to another, while the acts in themselves are sector-specific. Another chunk of data protection norms is based on precedents and case law. This article seeks to track the development of notion of privacy in the U.S., explore the interplay between state and federal statutes, evaluate the scope of protection and offer analysis of case law and its importance in shaping the doctrine of personal privacy.