Privacy and State Agencies
What is Informational Privacy?
Think of almost any state government activity - licensing drivers, collecting taxes, giving temporary financial assistance to eligible families, licensing people to work as home contractors or physicians, protecting abused children, providing mental health care. The state agencies responsible for these functions collect and maintain personal information about individuals to carry out their responsibilities. This information varies in type and can include home addresses, social security numbers, medical conditions, family relationships, and personal finances, to name a few. This study asks three questions:
This report highlights information related to the first two questions.
For the purposes of this study, informational privacy could be equated with confidentiality of records held by state agencies. The current laws related to information access and how they are implemented would then be the central focus. Given the myriad of such statutes, with implementation at the individual agency level, this focus across the executive branch is no small task. The term privacy can take a broader scope, though, with a wider look at how state government handles personal information. The concept of "fair information practices" then comes into play, which, while very much concerned about access laws, also inquires into whether only necessary personal information is being collected in the first place, an individual's ability to view and contest any information maintained about him or her, and the security of the information. This study looks at the broader scope.
This broader scope is evident in a commonly used academic definition of information privacy: the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.1 This concept of individual control over personally identifying information in state agency records is subsumed into an existing legal structure of statutes and court decisions. In terms of accessibility, this legal structure does not treat all information the same, because not all information is considered to have similar needs for protection.
A note about the "right to privacy". The term "right to privacy" has been recognized in contexts other than informational to provide constitutionally based protections against government interference with people in aspects of their personal lives.2 In contrast, there is no recognized constitutional right to privacy for truthful information. In fact, with respect to government records, the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment right to free speech would present an imposing barrier to any such shield. However, the interest in privacy has long been recognized in the common law of torts and in statutory law.
The common law of torts addresses civil disputes between parties when there is a claim one has somehow harmed the other. One of four recognized scenarios where a common law right is invoked is "unreasonable publicity given to the other's private life". This common law provision, as will be discussed, is used in Connecticut's informational privacy framework.
Report Content
This report highlights key provisions of two pertinent Connecticut laws related to state agency information applicable to all executive branch agencies-the Freedom of Information and Personal Data Acts. Specific record-related statutes are noted, and preliminary analysis of actual agency operations is presented. Finally, the unique law related to motor vehicle records is discussed.
1 Westin, Alan, Privacy and Freedom, Atheneum, New York, 1967. Note also in 1995, the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government, Inc., along with the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission and the Connecticut State Library, held a Privacy and Public Policy Symposium attended by many privacy experts, looking at the issue for both government and private sector information. A comprehensive report was produced from the proceedings, and included a working definition of privacy developed during the symposium: Privacy: a reasonable expectation that personal information will not be collected, maintained, used, or disseminated except where subject to socially accepted norms of ethical and legal behavior.
2 These include the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause protection of the individual's right to make unfettered choices about private matters related to procreation.