Privacy Before Everyone Had a Profile

The Electronic Privacy Information Center homepage from November 1996 is organized like a policy desk: Hot Topics, Search, Resources, Policy Archives, and About. Its text identifies EPIC as a public interest research center in Washington, D.C., focused on emerging civil liberties issues and privacy.

The links point to the Communications Decency Act, key recovery, policy letters, and archives. The page is almost entirely informational, with little ornament beyond structure.

That plainness is historically useful. Privacy had not yet become a consumer settings panel or a scandal cycle. It was already a public policy problem involving encryption, databases, speech, surveillance, and law.

The page captures privacy advocacy before social media normalized massive personal disclosure. It reminds us that the questions were visible early: who controls data, who gets access, and what rights survive when communication moves onto networks?