Government protection law covers different areas of law that safeguard the rights and liberties of citizens against the dictates of a state. This kind of law covers privacy laws regarding data and civil rights laws. Equal protection laws as well as labor laws are a few examples. These rights are enshrined in the Constitution and are enforced by the courts.

Privacy laws protect for instance, personal information that is collected by federal agencies. The Privacy Act establishes four procedural and substantive rights for individuals. These include the right to have access to their personal records from government agencies and to correct any information found to be in error; to limit how their personal information is shared with others; and to file a suit against government agencies if they violate these rights. The Privacy Act’s “fair information practices” (FIPPs) are the basis for most other privacy laws, including European Union Regulation 2016/679 on the Protection of Natural Persons with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data GDPR; the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act; the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996; and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

The FIPPs are also the basis of civil rights laws, which protect the rights of citizens to express their opinions and also prevent discrimination. In order for a person to win a civil rights case they must show that a governmental body was unfairly treated them differently because of their protected characteristic. Depending on the kind of discrimination the court will review the government’s actions using three different methods that include strict scrutinization, intermediate scrutiny and rational basis.

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