To amend title 5, United States Code, by adding a section 552a to safeguard individual privacy from the misuse of Federal records, to provide that individuals be granted access to records concerning them which are maintained by Federal agencies…

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the “Privacy Act of 1974.”

SEC. 2. (a) The Congress finds that—

(1) the privacy of an individual is directly affected by the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personal information by Federal agencies;

(2) the increasing use of computers and sophisticated information technology, while essential to the efficient operations of the Government, has greatly magnified the harm to individual privacy that can occur from any collection, maintenance, use, or dissemination of personal information;

(3) the opportunities for an individual to secure employment, insurance, and credit, and his right to due process, and other legal protections are endangered by the misuse of certain information systems;

(4) the right to privacy is a personal and fundamental right protected by the Constitution of the United States; and

(5) in order to protect the privacy of individuals identified in information systems maintained by Federal agencies, it is necessary and proper for the Congress to regulate the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of information by such agencies.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PUBLIC LAW 93-579, 1974

In the absence of…a philosophy, threatening shadows of an inevitable “1984” totalitarianism will appear and the less developed nations will fear multinational domination by electronic information tentacles violating their sovereignty. Even advanced nations are concerned over the centralization into American-based credit and similar data banks of the most intimate details about their citizenries, resources, and cultures. These fears are producing harnesses on the new information industry, in the form of legislation controlling the outward flow of data, personal and commercial, from many nations and also lead to demands by some for control of information collected about them from any source. This race between technological capabilities and sporadic political and legal restraints will produce conflict and frustration rather than confident growth unless an adequate philosophy for the new age is developed.