In 1998 the US Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508, agencies must give employees with disabilities and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (c.23) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, regulating the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance and investigation, and covering the interception of communications. It was ostensibly introduced to take account of technological change such as the growth of the Internet and strong encryption.
Communications security is the discipline of preventing unauthorized interceptors from accessing telecommunications in an intelligible form, while still delivering content to the intended recipients.
Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored on a hard drive, or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. The monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies.
Crypto-anarchism is a form of anarchy accomplished through computer technology. Crypto-anarchists employ cryptographic software for confidentiality and security while sending and receiving information over computer networks, in an effort to protect their privacy, their political freedom, and their economic freedom.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 was enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. It was created primarily to modernize the flow of healthcare information, stipulate how Personally Identifiable Information maintained by the healthcare and healthcare insurance industries should be protected from fraud and theft, and address limitations on healthcare insurance coverage.
The Clipper chip was a chipset that was developed and promoted by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) as an encryption device that secured “voice and data messages" with a built-in backdoor. It was intended to be adopted by telecommunications companies for voice transmission. It can encipher and decipher messages. It was part of a Clinton Administration program to “allow Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials the ability to decode intercepted voice and data transmissions." “Each clipper chip ha[d] a unique serial number and a secret ‘unit key,’ programmed into the chip when manufactured." This way, each device was meant to be different from the next.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, is a federal freedom of information law that requires the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the United States government upon request. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, and defines nine exemptions to the statute. The Act was intended to make U.S. government agencies' functions more transparent so that the American public could more easily identify problems in government functioning and put pressure on Congress, agency officials, and the President to address them.
A cybersecurity regulation comprises directives that safeguard information technology and computer systems with the purpose of forcing companies and organizations to protect their systems and information from cyberattacks like viruses, worms, Trojan horses, phishing, denial of service (DOS) attacks, unauthorized access and control system attacks. There are numerous measures available to prevent cyberattacks.
Internet censorship in the United States is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet in the United States. The U.S. possesses protection of freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship, a right protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. These protections extend to the Internet; however, the U.S. government has censored sites in the past, and they are increasing in number to this day.
Information technology law concerns the law of information technology, including computing and the internet. It is related to legal informatics, and governs the digital dissemination of both (digitalized) information and software, information security and electronic commerce. aspects and it has been described as "paper laws" for a "paperless environment". It raises specific issues of intellectual property in computing and online, contract law, privacy, freedom of expression, and jurisdiction.
An Internet kill switch is a countermeasure concept of activating a single shut off mechanism for all Internet traffic.
Key disclosure laws, also known as mandatory key disclosure, is legislation that requires individuals to surrender cryptographic keys to law enforcement. The purpose is to allow access to material for confiscation or digital forensics purposes and use it either as evidence in a court of law or to enforce national security interests. Similarly, mandatory decryption laws force owners of encrypted data to supply decrypted data to law enforcement.
The Personal Data Privacy and Security Act of 2009, was a bill proposed in the United States Congress to increase protection of personally identifiable information by private companies and government agencies, set guidelines and restrictions on personal data sharing by data brokers, and to enhance criminal penalty for identity theft and other violations of data privacy and security. The bill was sponsored in the United States Senate by Patrick Leahy (Democrat-Vermont), where it is known as S.1490.
Network sovereignty is the effort of a governing entity, such as a state, to create boundaries on a network and then exert a form of control, often in the form of law enforcement over such boundaries.
Mass surveillance in Australia takes place in a number of network media including telephone, internet and other communications networks, financial systems, vehicle and transit networks, international travel, utilities, and government schemes and services including those asking citizens to report other citizens.
The Walsh Report was an Australian cryptography policy review undertaken for the Australian government by Gerard Walsh, initially released in 1996 and then withdrawn before its sale to the public. Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) obtained a redacted copy under freedom of information laws and published it on EFA's website. Subsequently, an unredacted copy was found and the redacted parts were added to the EFA copy.
The Telecommunications Amendment Act 2015 is an Australian law that amends the Telecommunications Act 1979 and the Telecommunications Act 1997 to introduce a statutory obligation for Australian telecommunication service providers to retain, for a period of two years, particular types of telecommunications data (metadata) and introduces certain reforms to the regimes applying to the access of stored communications and telecommunications data under the TIA Act.
Human rights applied to encryption is an important concept for freedom of expression as encryption is a technical resource of implementation of basic human rights.
