Due
2300 on Lessons 39 and 40
Duration
30–60 minutes
Points
10 points

Help Policy

Authorized Resources
Any, excluding classmates
Notes
Never copy another person’s work and submit it as your own

You must document all resources, including the instructor and instructor-provided course materials (such as the textbook)

Instructions

Respond to one of the following prompts, and reply to one of your classmates’ original posts. Unless otherwise indicated by the prompt, it is expected that responses should be no more than a paragraph (one paragraph ≈ 200 words).

  1. Briefly summarize one of the following laws related to privacy:
    • Privacy Act of 1974
    • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)
    • Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
    • Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPRA)
    • Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)
    • Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
    • European Union (EU) Data Protection Directive
    • EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
    • California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

    What rights does each guarantee? What penalties does each prescribe for non-compliance?

    If desired, you may select another privacy law to summarize as long as that privacy law is generally applicable – e.g., do not summarize a city government ordinance.

    Note: The initial post should summarize the law as written, but responses to that initial post should critique the rights and penalties of the law. Do you believe that both are reasonable, or do they miss the mark in some way?

  2. Describe a privacy issue that has arisen from Web 2.0 applications. What do you believe is the best way to address this issue?
  3. Should developers enforce strict privacy controls, allow users to do whatever they want, or provide options regarding privacy that users may select? Argue for (or against) one of these options being sure to provide concrete examples to justify your position.

  4. What do you think of the following?

    The UK government’s Communication Data Bill will require ISPs to log all e-mails and website accesses for all users for up to one year. The key motivation behind this is to improve public safety in a changing communication environment by aiding law enforcement agencies in tackling online criminal activity. Privacy campaigners, on the other hand, have raised serious concerns about privacy and personal freedoms. (Rashid et al. 2009)

    More generally, should governments enact legislation to aid law enforcement agencies when investigating (potential) criminal activity? Justify your position, preferably by referring to existing privacy-related legislation.

  5. A variety of laws govern cadets at the US service academies, partially due to the application of Department of Defense (DoD)’s policies that govern the service academies but also legislation and policies that apply to institutions of higher learning (e.g., universities). Research FERPA and the applicable DoD policies for safeguarding personally-identifiable information (PII), and assess if current practices satisfy these regulations.

Submission

Submit your posts using the Blackboard discussion board for your section.

Due to the way that Blackboard is configured (i.e., one site per course instead of one site per section), the main “Discussion Board” is visible to all students. Thus, it might be difficult for those posting later to avoid rehashing the same content.

Consequently, each section has its own discussion forum, which is accessible only to students in that section. You can access the discussion forum for your section in the following ways:

  • Groups > Section ? > Group Tools > Group Discussion Board
  • My Groups > Section ? > Group Discussion Board

where ? is a placeholder for the section number (e.g., M3A).

Be sure to document any sources that you used when writing your posts.

Grading

Grading is largely based on completion, but posts should demonstrate effort commensurate with the expected duration for this activity. Citing multiple references, drawing connections among others’ posts, additional responses, etc. all demonstrate effort that is appropriate or even exceeds the expectation. Conversely, summarizing the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article, poor spelling and grammar, off-topic posts, etc. demonstrate lack of effort.

Posts that express simple (dis)agreement will be ignored for the purpose of grading. For example,

I agree.

may be appropriate in the context of a conversation but does not satisfy the requirements when responding to someone else’s post. (A good rule of thumb might be that fewer than 20 words does not qualify as a “post.”) Nevertheless, several short posts (e.g., 100 words) may collectively sum to the level of effort expected.

Rubric

The specific grading rubric is as follows:

Initial post
Exceeds standard (100%)
Fully addresses prompt and expands upon it
Meets standard (90%)
Fully addresses prompt
Nearly meets standard (75%)
Addresses most, but not all, of the prompt
Below standard (50%)
Post is obviously incomplete or off-topic
Missing (0%)
Post does not address the prompt or is missing entirely
Response
Exceeds standard (100%)
Contributes to the discussion in a meaningful way (e.g., adds new information to that previously presented)
Meets standard (90%)
Contributes to the discussion
Nearly meets standard (75%)
Response is on-topic but does not further the discussion
Below standard (50%)
Response is off-topic or inappropriate or may not be relevant to the larger discussion
Missing (0%)
Response is limited to simple (dis)agreement or missing entirely

As indicated by the rubric, earning all the points requires exceeding the standard. Simply addressing the prompt and contributing to the discussion will only earn 90% of the available points.