March 2012 Social Networking and Privacy
A Book Discussion Featuring Author Lori Andrews
Monday, March 5, 2012
12:45 - 1:45 PM
Boalt Hall
Room 100
Facebook, with over 750,000,000 members, is equivalent to the third largest nation in the world, yet it has no Constitution. In Lori Andrews’ new book, I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy, Andrews explores what it would mean to develop a Constitution for social networks. She analyzes what concepts like freedom of expression, right to privacy, due process and the right to a fair trial might mean in the social network context. She describes how courts’ handling of social network issues contrasts with courts’ reasoning in cases involving other technologies, including medical technologies and forensic technologies. She also shows how virtually everything you post on a social network or other website is being digested, analyzed, and monetized. In essence, a second self—a virtual interpretation of you—is being created from the detritus of your life that exists on the Web. Increasingly, key decisions about you are based on that distorted image of you. Whether you get a mortgage, a kidney, a date, or a job may be determined by your digital alter ego rather than by you.
Lori Andrews is a Chicago-Kent College of Law professor whose work assesses the social impact of emerging technologies. She directs the Institute for Science, Law and Technology at Illinois Institute of Technology. She chaired the federal advisory committee to the Human Genome Project and has advised governments and professional groups ranging from the G8 science ministers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. She grounds her policy analysis in detailed empirical studies, for which she has received grants from the U.S. Congress, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, and the M.D. Anderson Foundation.
Lori is the author of eleven non-fiction books and three novels. She frequently appears on television, including on 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, and Nightline. She has written for publications that include Playboy, Parade, New York, Vogue, Glamour, Self, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Psychology Today.
In 2008, the American Bar Association Journal listed Lori Andrews as a “Newsmaker of the Year—a lawyer with a literary bent who has the scientific chops to rival any CSI investigator.” Her path-breaking pro bono litigation caused the National Law Journal to list her as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.
