“Propertizing” Privacy: Evaluating the Merits of a Property-Based Approach to Personal Data Protection

Event Summary

On December 9, AEI hosted an event exploring frameworks for understanding privacy.

The panel began with presentations on competing perspectives of how we think about privacy and consumer welfare. AEI’s Jim Harper and St. Mary’s University School of Law’s Adam MacLeod argued that personal information should be treated as common-law property. In contrast, Jane Bambauer, a professor at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law, contended that privacy and property law should remain distinct. James C. Cooper of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School then suggested that the issue should be resolved through marketplace competition with harm-based remedies.

The discussion evolved into a robust debate examining privacy levels, social principles, and underlying presumptions of privacy rights before concluding with a Q&A session.

—Kate Beinkampen

Event Description

Decades into the Information Age, privacy continues to bedevil policymakers and businesses. Does treating personal information as common-law property offer a framework for thinking about privacy protection and maximizing consumer welfare? Or have experiments with injecting property into privacy legislation already proven it inapt? Recent law review articles fall on each side of the issue, offering a chance to assess the status of one alternative to US federal privacy legislation, which seems permanently just over the horizon and unlikely to “solve” privacy.

Join AEI’s Jim Harper, the University of Florida’s Jane Bambauer, George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law’s James Cooper, and St. Mary’s University School of Law’s Adam MacLeod for a discussion on the issues raised by the intersection of privacy and property.

Event Materials

Event Transcript

Jim Harper: Personal Information Is Property

Jane Bambauer: How to Get the Property out of Privacy Law