Abstract

In recent years, due both to hacks that have leaked the personal information of hundreds of millions of people and to concerns about government surveillance, Americans have become more aware of the harms that can accompany the widespread collection of personal data. However, the law has not yet fully developed to recognize the concrete privacy harms that can result from what otherwise seems like ordinary economic activity involving the widespread aggregation and compilation of data.

This Note examines cases in which lower federal courts have applied the Supreme Court’s directions for testing the concreteness of alleged intangible privacy injuries, and in particular how that inquiry has affected plaintiffs’ suits under statutes that implicate privacy concerns. This Note proposes that, in probing the concreteness of these alleged privacy harms, the courts, through the doctrine of standing, are engaging in work that could serve to revitalize the judiciary’s long-dormant analysis of the nature of privacy harms. It suggests that courts should look beyond the four traditional privacy torts to find standing for plaintiffs who bring claims against entities that collect and misuse personal information. This Note urges courts to make use of a nexus approach to identify overlapping privacy concerns sufficient for standing, which would allow the federal judiciary to more adequately address emerging privacy harms.