Demand Your dotRights!
We are spending more and more time online – reading, writing, connecting and consuming. The more time we spend online, the more information we share with the businesses that make the Internet work. We share our emails, location information, chat histories, photos and lists of our friends. We share educational and medical information. All of this information is just as sensitive as it ever was, but the laws that protect our privacy have not kept pace with social and technological change.
The dotRights campaign is focused on updating and expanding privacy laws to include new developments in technology, so that the government has the same restrictions on access to Americans’ private, personal information online as they do offline.
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Learn the Facts
dotRights Overview
Search Engines
When you browse through online stcks of information, you are leaving a trail that reveals a lot about you: interests, hobbies, habits, and concerns.
Webmail
Online email services make it easy to keep in touch with friends and family. But every email creates a record of who you write, what you write, and when you send and read it.
Social Networking
Replacing interactions in the coffee shop with connections online leaves behind a lot of information about you, friends, and activities.
Photo Sites
The pictures you develop, store, or share online can tell many thousands of words to others about you and who you know, where you've gone, and what you've done.
Media Sites
Reading a book or watching a video is a great way to learn and explore new things. But a lot of information can be collected about who you are and what you read and watch.
Cloud Computing
Moving files from your hard drive to an online service or accessing applications through the Internet can be convenient. But, those documents and files you store or produce online can say a lot about you.
Location Information
Location data from your cell phone or laptop can tell more than just where you travel, but also what you do and even who you know.
In the News
ACLU Campaigns for Internet Privacy
ACLU-TN Launches Campaign Against State Internet Law
Resources
ACLU's Information on Internet Privacy
Guide to Facebook Privacy Controls
Cell Phone Location Tracking Public Records Request (2013)
Employers, schools and social networking privacy
Privacy 2.0: On How I learned to Demand My DotRights
Past Events
Surveillance State: Can Democracy Survive?
In October 2015, ACLU-TN and the Nashville Public Library hosted this event, in which Ben Wizner, director of the national ACLU Project on Speech, Privacy and Technology and lawyer to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, discussed the NSA’s mass surveillance program and its impact on privacy, free speech and democracy. The event was free and open to the public, and was preceded by a screening of "Citizenfour,” winner of the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Speaking Tour
In early November, ACLU-TN hosted a speaking tour throughout the state of Tennessee that addressed technology, online free speech and privacy.
Knoxville - Monday, November 7th at 6 p.m. University of Tennessee College of Law - Room 132 1505 Cumberland Avenue, Knoxville, TN
Featuring Allie Bohm, ACLU Policy & Advocacy Strategist and Prof. Glenn Reynolds of the UT College of Law. Moderated by UT College of Law Dean Douglas A. Blaze
Nashville - Tuesday, November 8th at 6:30 p.m. Watkins College of Art, Design & Film - Room 503 2298 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard, Nashville, TN
Featuring Allie Bohm, ACLU Policy & Advocacy Strategist and Jason Driskill, digital artist and Renaissance Center curator. Moderated by Vanderbilt professor Bruce Barry.
Memphis - Wednesday, November 9th at 3:30 p.m. University of Memphis - Manning Hall, Room 332 3744 Alumni Avenue, Memphis, TN
Featuring Allie Bohm, ACLU Policy & Advocacy Strategist and Professor Kris Markman of the University of Memphis Dept. of Communications. Moderated by Attorney Brian Faughnan of Thomason, Hendrix, Harvey, Johnson & Mitchell PLLC.
Cyberbullying CLE
On Wednesday, November 9th, ACLU-TN Legal Director Tricia Herzfeld hosted a Continuing Legal Education seminar to discuss student protection vs. First Amendment concerns, sexting and cyberbullying, and relevant Tennessee laws. This event was open to lawyers and law students. Sponsored by the Tennessee Bar Association.