In the past few decades the world has been dramatically transformed by technology. People have significantly evolved in how they interact with each other and the world; a side effect of this evolution is the drastic change in personal privacy. Private citizens, corporations, and governments all have different ideas on what privacy means and what information should be respected as private. Typically citizens don't realize their expectations of privacy are falsely held, or more accurately that they have very little privacy left. Regarding privacy, decades have gone by without any action to protect an individual's privacy against entities buying, selling, storing, and using your private data. Policy can take years to enact, and the minimal legislative action happening leans toward protecting special interest groups who have great political sway.
Action needs to be taken. Policy needs to be created allowing businesses to operate while allowing individuals to keep their information private. In the 2013 Montana Legislative Session Daniel Zolnikov, with the support of Eric Fulton, worked to introduce comprehensive legislation to protect the privacy of the citizens of Montana. Daniel Zolnikov and Eric Fulton will talk about the ideas behind the bill, the process of drafting and introducing legislation, presenting the bill before committee and the public testimony process, and the politics of why the bill ultimately died. The speakers will end the talk with lessons learned and thoughts on how to effectively pass future privacy legislation.