ABSTRACT
Technological innovations have amplified government's dual responsibilities in relation to personal privacy in recent decades. Government collection of personal data is often perceived as an invasion of privacy. In the past several years, security breaches in government involving personal information have increased steadily. The US government is facing the challenge of effectively balancing the use of personal information with the requirements to be accountable to the public and protect individual rights to privacy as prescribed by the legislature in an age of accelerated technological and social changes. To help address the challenge, this chapter examines the policy issue in four areas: the US regulatory framework for the protection of personal information, the recent technological innovations and government's technological initiatives as well as their implications to privacy, the problems involving the policy issue, and the European Union's approach to addressing the policy problem. The terms personal data and personal information share very similar meanings.
