The Legislature declares that the right to privacy is a personal and fundamental right protected by Section 1 of Article I of the Constitution of California and by the United States Constitution and that all individuals have a right of privacy in information pertaining to them. The Legislature further makes the following findings:

(a) The right to privacy is being threatened by the indiscriminate collection, maintenance, and dissemination of personal information and the lack of effective laws and legal remedies.

Terms Used In California Civil Code 1798.1

  • individual: means a natural person. See California Civil Code 1798.3
  • personal information: means any information that is maintained by an agency that identifies or describes an individual, including, but not limited to, the individual's name, social security number, physical description, home address, home telephone number, education, financial matters, and medical or employment history. See California Civil Code 1798.3

(b) The increasing use of computers and other sophisticated information technology has greatly magnified the potential risk to individual privacy that can occur from the maintenance of personal information.

(c) In order to protect the privacy of individuals, it is necessary that the maintenance and dissemination of personal information be subject to strict limits.

(Added by Stats. 1977, Ch. 709.)

  Previous section
Next section  
 Article 1 Contents