Standardize language

blog/posts/the-fight-for-privacy-after-death.md

@@ -24,15 +24,15 @@ In the absence of law comes the pursuit of it, against a backdrop of flagrant pr
 
 Medical protections are tentative because of piecemeal development. Typically involving legal workarounds, they offer rare precedent for what might happen to your digital ghosts now and in the future, with the only clear trend being a reluctance to protect.
 
-That said, the US is one country that has taken measures to protect the medical privacy of the dead. The *Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act* (HIPPA) dictates that 50 years of protection must be given to your personally identifiable medical information after you die. Except there’s a catch. State laws also apply, and state laws differ. In Colorado, Louisiana, and many others, its efficacy is severely challenged by laws dictating the mandatory release of information regarded as public – including autopsy reports and even [your genetic information](http://dx.doi.org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1177/1073110516654124).
+That said, the US is one country that has taken measures to protect the medical privacy of the dead. The *Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act* (HIPAA) dictates that 50 years of protection must be given to your personally identifiable medical information after you die. Except there’s a catch. State laws also apply, and state laws differ. In Colorado, Louisiana, and many others, its efficacy is severely challenged by laws dictating the mandatory release of information regarded as public – including autopsy reports and even [your genetic information](http://dx.doi.org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1177/1073110516654124).
 
 In lieu of any protections, surviving relatives in Europe have found some success claiming that their own Article 8 rights – that ECHR right to privacy – have been violated through disclosures or inspections related to their deceased.
 
-In one case, Leyla Polat, an Austrian national, suffered the awful death of her son just two days after birth following a cerebral haemorrhage. The family refused a post-mortem examination, wanting to bury their child in accordance with Muslim beliefs; but doctors insisted it take place, covertly removing his internal organs and filling the hollows with cotton wool. When this was discovered during the funeral rites, the boy had to be buried elsewhere, and without ceremony. After several court cases and appeals, The European Court of Human Rights [found](https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/rum#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22002-13361%22%5D%7D) that Leyla’s Article 8 and 9 rights had been violated.
+In one case, Leyla Polat, an Austrian national, suffered the awful death of her son just two days after birth following a cerebral hemorrhage. The family refused a post-mortem examination, wanting to bury their child in accordance with Muslim beliefs; but doctors insisted it take place, covertly removing his internal organs and filling the hollows with cotton wool. When this was discovered during the funeral rites, the boy had to be buried elsewhere, and without ceremony. After several court cases and appeals, The European Court of Human Rights [found](https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/rum#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22002-13361%22%5D%7D) that Leyla’s Article 8 and 9 rights had been violated.
 
 As an aside – Stalin’s grandson [tried the same Article 8 route](https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-150568%22%5D%7D) in relation to reputational attacks on his grandfather, reflecting attempts to apply the workaround more widely.
 
-It’s not that there hasn’t been some progress. The fundamental problem is that protections – ****already sparse – are only as good as their material and geographic scopes, their interactions with other laws, and how they are interpreted in a court. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the Smallman sisters. Judge Mark Lucraft KC [found](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/R-v-Jaffer-Lewis-sentencing-061221.pdf) that PCs Jaffer and Lewis, in taking selfies with the murdered victims, had:
+It’s not that there hasn’t been some progress. The fundamental problem is that protections – already sparse – are only as good as their material and geographic scopes, their interactions with other laws, and how they are interpreted in a court. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the Smallman sisters. Judge Mark Lucraft KC [found](https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/R-v-Jaffer-Lewis-sentencing-061221.pdf) that PCs Jaffer and Lewis, in taking selfies with the murdered victims, had:
 
 > *“…wholly disregarded the privacy of the two victims of horrific violence and their families for what can only have been some cheap thrill, kudos, a kick or some form of bragging right by taking images and then passing them to others.”*
 
@@ -46,11 +46,11 @@ Even if you trust such tools to dispose of or act on our data, there is a discon
 
 But the reality is, you shouldn’t. You’ll recall that [deletion doesn’t usually mean deletion](https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/account-deletion/) – and after death, even GDPR can’t force big tech to delete the data of those lucky enough to have benefited from it. Account deleted or not, our ghosts will all be stuck in the machine.
 
-Recent reports have acknowledged dire possibilities. Almost worldwide, you can [legally train AI models on the data of a deceased person](https://www.reuters.com/article/world/data-of-the-dead-virtual-immortality-exposes-holes-in-privacy-laws-idUSKBN21Z0NE/) and recreate them in digital form – all without their prior consent. Organisations exist purely to scour your social media profiles and activity for this exact purpose. Your ghost could be used to generate engagement against your will, disclosing what you tried to hide.
+Recent reports have acknowledged dire possibilities. Almost worldwide, you can [legally train AI models on the data of a deceased person](https://www.reuters.com/article/world/data-of-the-dead-virtual-immortality-exposes-holes-in-privacy-laws-idUSKBN21Z0NE/) and recreate them in digital form – all without their prior consent. Organizations exist purely to scour your social media profiles and activity for this exact purpose. Your ghost could be used to generate engagement against your will, disclosing what you tried to hide.
 
 You may ask: why should the law care? Why indeed, when it deems we [cannot be harmed](https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199607860.003.0003) after death. To argue thus is to miss the point. A lack of privacy after death harms the living, often in ways others cannot see. The effect of [post-mortem anxiety](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17577632.2024.2438395#d1e120) is a real one that deeply troubles individuals wishing to keep a part of them hidden from public – or even family – view, whether it be it an [illicit affair](https://www.cardozoaelj.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Edwards-Galleyed-FINAL.pdf) or whatever else. Revelation at the point of death can be just as harmful to those still alive.
 
-There is cause for optimism. Article 85 of the *French Data Protection Act* allows you to include [legally enforceable demands concerning your personal data](https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-loi-informatique-et-libertes#article85) in your will. This is a truly landmark piece of legislation by the French that indicates what the global direction of travel should be, and what we should ultimately demand: protections for the dead, by the dead.
+There is cause for optimism. Article 85 of the *French Data Protection Act* allows you to include [legally enforceable demands concerning your personal data](https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-loi-informatique-et-libertes#article85) in your will. This is truly a landmark piece of legislation by the French that indicates what the global direction of travel should be, and what we should ultimately demand: protections for the dead, by the dead.
 
 But even more urgently, we must demand that governments across the world introduce even the most basic legal framework for post-mortem privacy that protects you, your family, and community from egregious harm.
 
@@ -58,4 +58,4 @@ The Smallmans deserved dignity – and so does everyone else in death. The law m
 
 ---
 
-This article hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface of the complexity of post-mortem privacy, and there are innumerable relevant cases and laws that simply wouldn’t fit. If the topic has caught your interest and you’d like to dig in more, [this white paper](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2022.105737) by Uta Kohl is a good starting point.
+*This article hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface of the complexity of post-mortem privacy, and there are innumerable relevant cases and laws that simply wouldn’t fit. If the topic has caught your interest, and you’d like to dig in more, [this white paper](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2022.105737) by Uta Kohl is a good starting point.*