This site, although in English, for a wider reaching purpose, is structured and registered in Italy.

Therefore the rules applied and the Court of Reference is located in Milan, Italy.

 

The rules applied to saving privacy are therefore these Italians ones:

 

Ai sensi dell'art. 13 del Decreto legislativo n.196 del 30/06/2003, si informa l'utente che TheHistoryOfAStalker ("HOAS") tratterà i dati personali che verranno forniti dall'utente nel corso della procedura di registrazione per ottenere la visione del materiale completo in conformità alla normativa vigente, ai seguenti termini e condizioni. (...following the detailed Italian Law, we inform the user that TheHistoryOfAStalker ("HOAS") will use the data given by the user himself on the verge of his registration process, in order to obtain the complete vision of the material which composes this site, in the strict observation of the rules applied currently, detailed as it follows).

1) Finalità. Adempimenti inerenti alla gestione dei servizi informativi e culturali on-line richiesti dall'utente, con particolare riferimento alla consultazione o scaricamento (downloading) del materiale documentario reso disponibile sul sito HOAS;(1) Purpose. The registration will allow the user to get access to the complete files that constitute this site background history, in order to evaluate the truth behind this shared story, with specific allowance at downloading the full material provided by HOAS.)

 

2) Modalità. Il trattamento consisterà nella raccolta e archiviazione dei dati personali dell'utente e sarà effettuato con strumenti informatici.(2) Mode. The registration process will archive the user's data in a digital way.)

 

3) Comunicazione e diffusione. I dati personali raccolti da HOAS per le finalità esclusive sopra elencate NON saranno per alcun motivo ceduti a terzi. (3) Third Parties Involvement and Sharing. The personal data of any registered user WON'T be shared or unveiled to third parties for NO reasons and NO purposes.)

 

4) Natura e conferimento dei dati. Il conferimento dei dati da parte dell'utente ha natura facoltativa. L'eventuale rifiuto di fornire i dati di cui sopra comporterà l'impossibilità per HOAS di trasferire il materiale informativo completo all'utente. (4) Personal Data Sharing Nature and Purpose. The allowance from the user in letting HOAS register personal data has a deliberate nature. The refusal from the user in saring the requested data will imply the impossibility for the user to access the full content of HOAS site.)

 

5) Diritti dell'interessato. In qualità di interessato, l'utente ha i diritti di cui all'art. 7 D. lgs. n. 196/2003, tra cui quello di ottenere dal titolare la conferma dell'esistenza o meno di propri dati personali nel database di HOAS. (5) User's Rights. The user who has become a registered user in order to access HOAS full contents has on his behalf the rights as stated from art. 7 D.lgs. n.196/2003, which included the information right to be constantly updated about the existence of his data in the HOAS database.)

 

6) Titolare del trattamento. Il titolare del trattamento è HOAS - The History Of A Stalker - Copyright, con sede legale in Segrate, Milano, Via Pertini 9. (6) Holder of Data. The unique holder of the user's data is HOAS - The History Of a Stalker - Copyright, with HQ in Segrate, Milano, Via Pertini 9.)

Ai sensi dell'articolo 10 della Legge 675/96 vi comunichiamo che i vostri dati saranno utilizzati esclusivamente per la trasmissione delle informazioni richieste. In qualsiasi momento potrete far valere i Vostri diritti come previsto dall'art. 13 della Legge 675/96 rivolgendovi previo contatto al Titolare del Trattamento.

 

Following Art. 10 of Law 675/96 we like to inform you readers and users that your collected data will be solely used for the transmission of the information requested. In any given moment registered users can excercise their rights as detailed in the Art. 13 of Law 675/96, by addressing the request to the HOAS Holder.

This site, among other purposes, has also the aim to let readers evaluate how easy is to be fooled onto the web.

 

The identity is a shifting concept in the age of World Wide web, and this is actually one of the reasons for which Cyber Stalkers are constantly increasing their number and power.

 

Please, read the following essays to understand better this very important matter.

 

 

By Peng Hwa Ang

 

(...) There are several major differencies between the American and the European  approaches. The first is that in the EU, the protection of personal data and privacy is clearly stated under a convention as a fundamental human right. (Art. 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, 1963).

(...)

The US does value privacy but the right to privacy has been read by courts as implied. There is no mention of the word "privacy" or the phrase "protection of privacy" in the US Constitution.

(...)

The Fourth Amendament states that: "(t)he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and partially desribing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The Ninth Amendament states that: "(t)he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Under a rule of legal interpretation, the listing of rights could be read to imply that the entire list constituted all the rights.

The Tenth Amendament states that:"(p)owers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people."

 

So while both approaches do enshrine privacy as a fundamental human right,  the US approach of treating privacy as an implied right creates ambiguity.

(...)

The European approach creates stronger privacy protection for another reason: to guarantee a fundamental human right requires the force of the law. In the US, there are privacy laws but these are "fragmented, incomplete and discontinous" (Gellman, 1993).

Excerpts taken from:

• Personality Rights - US Library of Congress;
• Digital Identity - Phil Windley;
• Laws of Identity - K. Cameron;
• Security Recommendations for Stalking Victims (Stanford University);
• The Right To Privacy - Warren and Brandeis;
• Invasion of Privacy, Intrusion Upon Seclusion - (Stanford University);

The right of publicity evolved out of the right of privacy in the United States, and is still sometimes considered (erroneously) a "subset" of privacy rights. Some might consider it the right to charge for (or bar entirely) the commercial exploitation of name, likeness, voice or "personality." Typically, but by no means exclusively, the Right of Publicity is manifest in advertising or merchandise. The Right of Publicity is a state-based right, as opposed to Federal, and to date, eighteen states have enacted Right of Publicity legislation. In most other jurisdictions without a specific Right of Publicity statute, the Right of Publicity may still be recognized via common law. The Right of Publicity is a rapidly-evolving doctrine with a history of reported cases in the United States and worldwide.

 

By the broadest definition, the right of publicity is the right of every individual to control any commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness, or some other identifying aspect of identity, limited (under U.S. law) by the First Amendment. The right of publicity can be referred to as publicity rights or even personality rights. The term "right of publicity" was coined by Judge Jerome Frank in the 1953 case Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 202 F.2d 866 (2d Cir.).

 

Digital identity refers to the aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the mediation of people's experience of their own identity and the identity of other people and things. Digital identity also has another common usage as the digital representation of a set of claims made by one digital subject about itself or another digital subject.

 

A digital subject is an entity represented or existing in the digital realm which is being described or dealt with. Every digital subject has a finite, but unlimited number of identity attributes.

A digital subject can be human or non-human. Non-human examples include:

• Devices and computers (with which we have built the "digital realm" in the first place);
• Digital resources (which attract us to it);
• Policies and relationships between other digital subjects (e.g., between humans and devices or documents or services).

An observer's perception of the digital identity of an entity is inevitably mediated by the subjective viewpoint of that observer (just as it is with physical identity). In order to attribute a digital representation to an entity, and so to elide the two as a digital subject, the attributing party (the observer) must trust that the representation does indeed pertain to the entity (see Authentication below)

 

Authentication is a key aspect of trust-based identity attribution, providing a codified assurance of the identity of one entity to another. Authentication methodologies include the presentation of a unique object such as a bank credit card, the provision of confidential information such as a password or the answer to a pre-arranged question, the confirmation of ownership of an e-mail address, and more robust but relatively costly solutions utilising encryption methodologies. In general, business-to-business authentication prioritises security while user to business authentication tends towards simplicity. New physical authentication techniques such as iris scanning, handprinting, and voiceprinting are currently being developed and in the hope of providing improved protection against identity theft.

 

Information and privacy in the Digital Era

 

Data privacy refers to the evolving relationship between technology and the legal right to, or public expectation of privacy in the collection and sharing of data about one's self. Privacy concerns exist wherever uniquely identifiable data relating to a person or persons are collected and stored, in digital form or otherwise. In some cases these concerns refer to how data is collected, stored, and associated. In other cases the issue is who is given access to information. Other issues include whether an individual has any ownership rights to data about them, and/or the right to view, verify, and challenge that information.

 

Various types of personal information often come under privacy concerns. For various reasons, individuals may not wish for personal information such as their religion, sexual orientation, political affiliations, or personal activities to be revealed. This may be to avoid discrimination, personal embarrassment, or damage to one's professional reputation.

 

Financial privacy, in which information about a person's financial transactions is guarded, is important for the avoidance of fraud or identity theft. Information about a person's purchases can also reveal a great deal about that person's history, such as places they have visited, whom they have had contact with, products they use, their activities and habits, or medications they have used.

 

Internet privacy is the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information. These concerns include whether email can be stored or read by third parties without consent, or whether third parties can track the web sites someone has visited. Another concern is whether web sites which are visited collect, store, and possibly share personally identifiable information about users. Tools used to protect privacy on the internet include encryption tools and anonymizing services like I2P and tor.

 

Medical privacy allows a person to keep their medical records from being revealed to others. This may be because they have concern that it might affect their insurance coverage or employment. Or it may be because they would not wish for others to know about medical or psychological conditions or treatment which would be embarrassing. Revealing medical data could also reveal other details about one's personal life (such as about one's sexual activity for example).

 

Sexual privacy prevents a person from being forced to carry a pregnancy to term and enables individuals to acquire and use contraceptives and safe sex supplies and information without community or legal review.

 

Political privacy has been a concern since voting systems emerged in ancient times. The secret ballot is the simplest and most widespread measure to ensure that political views are not known to anyone other than the original voter — it is nearly universal in modern democracy, and considered a basic right of citizenship. In fact even where other rights of privacy do not exist, this type of privacy very often does.

 

Privacy is an individual right

Alan Westin believes that new technologies alter the balance between privacy and disclosure, and that privacy rights may limit government surveillance to protect democratic processes. Westin defines privacy as "the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others".

Westin describes four states of privacy:

• solitude,
• intimacy,
• anonymity,
• reserve. 

These states must balance participation against norms.

 

"Each individual is continually engaged in a personal adjustment process in which he balances the desire for privacy with the desire for disclosure and communication of himself to others, in light of the environmental conditions and social norms set by the society in which he lives." - Alan Westin, Privacy and Freedom, 1968