Data law

by John Bandler

Data law is law about data, such as data breach notification laws, cybersecurity laws, and privacy laws. It is the newest part of law cyberlaw, laws enacted specifically to protect data.

Terms mean different things to different people, this is what data law means to me.

Data law in a minute

Data law is the merging of two words, "data" and "law".

It is the law around data, or that portion of cyberlaw created specifically to deal with our newer issues with data, to include laws for:

Secure data disposal
Data breach notification
Cybersecurity
Privacy.

In my book on cyberlaw, my chapters on data law cover these areas plus artificial intelligence.

What is law?

Law is a system of rules put forth by the government. It includes the federal and state constitutions, statutes that are created through the legislative process, regulations but forth through the regulatory process, and decisions by judges (precedent) that interpret the laws.

Even broader than these laws and regulations are various rules for society and individuals, which I discuss in another article.

See my articles on law and rules (links at bottom).

What is cyberlaw?

Cyberlaw is the area of law dealing with digital things, computers, data, networks.

There are two analogies I use to visualize cyberlaw with respect to other areas of law:

Cyberlaw is built on a foundation of traditional law
Cyberlaw is a subset of all law.

Notably, it is hard to find any area of life or law that is not related to "cyber" in some way.

To understand cyberlaw, we need to understand other areas of more traditional law, such as:

Criminal law
Negligence law
Contract law
Intellectual property law

And so forth.

Cyberlaw also includes the areas of data law we covered above.

Cyberlaw includes data law

Cybersecurity and privacy law 2023-7 (1)

Cybersecurity and privacy law comes from different places, and I depict that here.

Then there are laws specific to "cyber", enacted to deal with the new challenges of the internet and all that happens online. This includes specific laws and regulations about:

Cybercrime
Collecting digital evidence
Data disposal (e.g. to securely dispose of data)
Data breach notification
Cybersecurity
Privacy.

As above, I think of "data law" as the four areas of:

Data disposal
Data breach notification
Cybersecurity
Privacy.

We can analyze this further by noting that the above sequence is from simplest to more complex, and also in the order of how these laws developed.

Further, some of these areas of data law are subsets of the other. For example, most cybersecurity laws will have a secure data disposal component within them. And most privacy laws will includes components of data breach notification and cybersecurity.

Why data law?

Existing law was not sufficient to deal with all the issues we encounter now that data and cyber is everywhere. So these new laws were created.

Is there more to know about data law?

Yes, I cover it in part 6 of my book on cyberlaw . Before we cover "data law", we cover traditional law and how it applies to cyberspace.

If you can't wait for the book, or don't want to purchase the book, I have lots of resources on my site here, and you can start with my Cyberlaw book resources page. Resources and Links for the book Cyberlaw: Law for Digital Spaces and Information Systems, by John Bandler