The Future of Privacy Forum Agenda for Consumers and Businesses

FPF will seek to bring transparency to online data practices. Our plan is to document practices, produce multi-media educational materials, and commission reports and studies that provide consumers and policy makers the real story about how their data is used.

FPF will seek to bring true transparency and user control to behavioral targeting and will broaden the discussion of the ethics of what the online norms can be with regard to use of web browsing.

FPF will seek to ensure that considerations around data retention, limitation, and deletion are a significant part of the consumer privacy debate.

FPF will seek to drive practices that enhance consumer controls – ensuring that data use is obvious, useful, intuitive and used and for a benefit he values and controls – no matter the type of technology used.

FPF will explore opportunities to clarify the definitions of personal data and establish baseline practices about what is accepted as anonymous. But even when data isn’t identifiable, trustworthy practices must be in place whenever data can be used to tailor a user’s experience.

FPF will seek solutions that get beyond the limitations of cookies to improve the state management of privacy.

FPF will seek to highlight the privacy risks and the data protection opportunities presented by new data from technologies such as geo-location, mobile and RFID. There is a limited window to ensure that the deployment of these technologies builds in the kind of controls needed. Already we see examples of leading edge start-ups rushing forward without the needed tools in place.

FPF will help drive online privacy education for consumers and will particularly consider the impacts on teens, users with disabilities and seniors. We will work to develop civic norms applicable to both data subject and data user. We need our teens to think twice about the embarrassing disclosures they may make online and to understand that we live in a world where we must manage our own brand and digital persona – but equally we must train the businesses that making secondary use of data in a manner disturbing to users may be akin to peeking at a diary just because it was left open. We cannot expect the generation that lives virtually to be in a continual state of self censorship. Users need tools to be able to speak freely, informally and privately without having to worry it will be used against them.

FPF will advocate for privacy advances that are business practical, but that substantially raise the bar to ensure personal autonomy for all who seek to embrace the benefits of our digital society. We will seek to work with industry, advocates and policymakers to ensure the future of privacy is one where we are not enslaved by our data, but rather where data serves the benefit of humankind.