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  • InsideTrack
  • December 01, 2021

    Legal Research 101: Exploring Privacy Laws

    Law librarian Carol Hassler guides you through some of the best resources for beginning your research into privacy laws.

    Carol Hassler

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    Dec. 1, 2021 – Privacy concerns touch every aspect of life. While this is not a new phenomenon, emerging and changing technology makes privacy law a shifting landscape.

    Where do you begin your research when there is that whole shifting landscape of resources out there?

    Good Places to Start

    Begin with the basics. The right to privacy is codified in Wis. Stat. section 995.50, with additional privacy-related laws throughout the statutes.

    This year, the Wisconsin Legislative Council released Information Memoradum IM-2021-04, an overview on privacy law that outlines civil and criminal penalties for invasion of privacy. It lists some of the major statute sections that may be cited when exploring a privacy complaint.

    This primer is a useful place to start your research, but there are several sources which expand on these and other privacy-related topics.

    Next: Analysis Articles

    Wisconsin legislative agencies as well as the Congressional Research Service have published recent analysis articles on privacy issues.

    Carol Hassler Carol Hassler is a law librarian at the Wisconsin State Law Library. She is a member of the Law Librarians Association of Wisconsin (LLAW). LLAW's Public Relations Committee coordinates regular contributions by its members to InsideTrack.

    These types of topics are often revisited every few years by these agencies, so it’s worth exploring their websites for updates as the guides linked below drift out of date.

    Congressional Research Service reports can be searched and filtered based on active or archived status, as well as by a number of legislative topics.

    The Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau Library maintains digital collections of Legislative Reference Bureau and Legislative Council documents, or you can look for current reports on their respective websites:

    For a broad overview of privacy law, consult a treatise on the topic:

    Proskauer on Privacy: A Guide to Privacy and Data Security Law in the Information Age
    Published by the Practicing Law Institute, this single, loose leaf-updated volume explores common concerns, like employment and communications, with a focus on consumer data and medical privacy. You can see it via the State Law Library.

    Information Security and Privacy: A Guide to Federal and State Law and Compliance
    Published by Thomson Reuters, this book surveys laws on a number of issues, including financial, video and phone, online and social media, health, genetic privacy, and more. You can see it via the State Law Library.

    Narrowing Your Focus: Privacy Law Subtopics

    Privacy research is often best achieved by narrowing your focus to a particular subtopic.

    Issues relating to privacy thread throughout the law, from civil disagreements to criminal complaints.

    For these, turn to focused treatises on educational law for student record privacy, or books like Thompson Reuter’s The Rights of Publicity and Privacy, which focuses on the use of the identity of real people in commercial applications and entertainment. You can see it via the State Law Library.

    There’s even a Restatement of the Law, Data Privacy, which examines the concept of privacy in terms of personal and public data (which you can read in HeinOnline with a Wisconsin State Law Library card – State Bar members are automatically eligible for a free library card.)

    To focus your research, State Bar of Wisconsin PINNACLE® books and CLE programs address privacy laws within a range of legal topics. Follow this link to visit the WisBar.org Marketplace to see what is offered.

    State Surveys of Privacy Laws

    Many privacy laws lie with the states. Understanding the law across state borders can be useful.

    Available through HeinOnline with a Wisconsin State Law Library card, the National Survey of State Laws includes fifty-state analysis of school record privacy as a standalone category, but analyzes privacy issues in a number of related topics, like family and criminal law.

    The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) website can be a useful destination for law surveys. NCSL provides a narrow focus for privacy research, with recent state laws related to digital privacy and state social media privacy guides.

    With online commerce, an understanding of international privacy law is necessary. One of the most well-known is the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). That and related laws are commonly referred to as EU data protection laws. Find summaries online, or thorough analysis in treatises or law review articles.

    Emerging Issues in Privacy Laws

    Audio or video recording and privacy are concerns that go back for decades. The Wisconsin Legislative Council memo, Civil and Criminal Penalties for Invasion of Privacy includes a helpful summary of Wisconsin’s wiretap law.

    For a survey of other state laws, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has a 50-state plain language guide to state recording laws for reporters to start your research.

    Trick-or-treating with my child recently, I noticed many more video doorbells installed on neighborhood houses. Law review articles are a terrific way to find legal analysis of emerging or changing technology. Find privacy discussions of smart home devices, doorbell cameras, and even smart glasses or augmented reality in recent articles like those listed here.

    In addition to the articles listed below, search for more in online article databases like HeinOnline and Index to Legal Periodicals.

    Further Research

    These resources should give you a good start. Need more? Reach out and ask your local law librarian for help with your research, or at these libraries:


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