Issue: Online Privacy Online privacy encompasses topics like website privacy policies and practices, encryption, and government and private industry surveillance. This issue also involves topics such as online anonymity, preventing inappropriate disclosures of personal information, and the online tracking of consumer behavior.

Here are some resources, including media coverage and links to organizations and related publications about online privacy issues. More general information about other online policy issues is available from the Issues bar at the top of most pages on this website.

Media Coverage

	Online Pics Get Gay Politician in Trouble
	A member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom has exposed himself to scandal by posting his nearly nude photo on a gay Web site, PlanetOut.com (December 1, 2003)

	Online Pics Get Gay Politician in Trouble
	A member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom has exposed himself to scandal by posting his nearly nude photo on a gay Web site, Gay.com (December 1, 2003)

	Pa. Judge's Defamation Suit Sent Back to Superior Court
	Lawyers for Superior Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin will have to prove before members of her own court that anonymous individuals who posted allegedly defamatory comments about her on the Internet should be forced to disclose their identities so she can proceed with a defamation suit against them, Legal Intelligencer (November 21, 2003)

	Bush Backs International Cybercrime Plan
	Civil libertarians have objected to the treaty ever since it became public in early 2000, arguing that it would endanger privacy rights and grant too much power to government investigators, CNET via ZDNet UK (November 19, 2003)

	Cameras Watching Students, Especially in Biloxi
	A digital camera hangs over every classroom here, silently recording students' and teachers' every move, New York Times (September 24, 2003)

Recent Coverage

Organizations and Related Publications

San Francisco Celebrates Supreme Court LGBTIQQ Rights Ruling A jubilant crowd of people dedicated to human rights for same-sex partners is gathering today to celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking the Texas sodomy statute, Online Policy Group (June 26, 2003)

	Hacking for Free Speech
	Wholesale Internet censorship now faces a serious challenge with hacker groups such as Hacktivismo are determined to poke holes in firewalls used for repression, FindLaw's Writ (June 24, 2003)

	San Francisco Reacts to Supreme Court LGBTIQQ Rights Ruling
	A broad coalition of San Francisco community organizations has called an event to protest or celebrate, depending on the outcome of the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Texas sodomy statute, QueerNet Project of Online Policy Group (June 12, 2003)

	Declaration on Freedom of Communication on the Internet
	Among other points, the declaration states: "In order to ensure protection against online surveillance and to enhance the free expression of information and ideas, member states should respect the will of users of the Internet not to disclose their identity", Committee of Ministers, Council of Europe (May 28, 2003)

Sex and the Internet OPG Executive Director Will Doherty presented a program entitled "Sex and the Internet" to the annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in San Jose, CA, Online Policy Group (April 12, 2003)

Recent Publications

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