FPF submits comments to the FTC
FPF filed comments on the Preliminary FTC Staff Report, “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers.” To view FPF’s comments, click here.
FPF filed comments on the Preliminary FTC Staff Report, “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers.” To view FPF’s comments, click here.
Jules Polonetsky Executive Director and Co-chair Future of Privacy Forum |
Jules serves as Executive Director and Co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that seeks to advance responsible data practices. FPF is supported by the chief privacy officers more than 110 leading companies, as well as an advisory board of comprised of the country’s leading academics and advocates. FPF’s current projects focus on Big Data, Mobile, Location, Apps, the Internet of Things, Wearables, De-Identification, Connected Cars and Student Privacy. Read More >> |
Christopher Wolf Founder and Co-chair Future of Privacy Forum |
Christopher Wolf is the co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum. Chris is also a partner in the Washington, DC office of Hogan Lovells LLP, where he is a leader of that firm’s privacy practice group. The views expressed by the Future of Privacy Forum are solely its own and do not reflect the views of Hogan Lovells LLP or its clients… Read More >> |
Mary Culnan Professor Emeritus at Bentley University |
Mary has testified before Congress, the Massachusetts Senate, and other government agencies on a range of privacy issues. In 1993, she served on a White House Task Force on Presidential Correspondence. From 1997-98, she served as a Commissioner on the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection…Read More >> |
Peter P. Swire Nancy J. and Lawrence P. Huang Professor at the Scheller College of Business of the Georgia Institute of Technology |
Peter P. Swire is the Nancy J. and Lawrence P. Huang Professor at the Scheller College of Business of the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a Senior Fellow with the Future of Privacy Forum, and also a fellow with the Center for American Progress and Center for Democracy and Technology. In November, 2012 he was named the co-chair of the Tracking Protection Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium, the Do Not Track process. He has been a recognized leader in privacy, cybersecurity, and the law of cyberspace for well over a decade, as a scholar, government official, and participant in numerous policy, public interest, and business settings…Read More >> |
Omer Tene Associate Professor College of Management School of Law |
Omer Tene is an Associate Professor at the College of Management School of Law, Rishon Le Zion, Israel; Affiliate Scholar at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society; and Visiting Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology and the Institute for Jewish Law and Israeli Law, Economy and Society.He is Managing Director of Tene & Associates, where he consults the Israeli government, data protection authority and…Read More >> |
Some companies are doing what they can. “I’m heartened by the attention to mobile privacy issues,” says privacy attorney Chris Wolf of Hogan Lovells. New services revolve around “ways to empower people to protect their information.”
The following is a guest post by David Hoffman, Director of Security Policy and Global Privacy Officer at Intel and FPF advisory board member.
Check out A Busy Time For Privacy and Security and other posts by David on the Intel Policy Blog.
A Busy Time For Privacy and Security
The past two weeks have included a number of important events for privacy and security. At the top of my mind have been the protests in Egypt, as I worry about the welfare of the Egyptian people and the many non-Egyptians in the country. One of the more disturbing aspects of the developments in Egypt, was the Egyptian government’s actions to require local internet service providers to disconnect from the global internet. The internet has become an integral component of individuals’ lives. Disconnecting a country from the global internet is an extreme and unfortunate reaction.
The Egyptian government had a solid record of assisting the private sector in making the internet available to its citizens. That record made the government’s decision to take down the connections more impactful, as local internet infrastructure suppliers appear not to have had plans to deal with the government decision.
In an interesting coincidence, the Egyptian government’s actions took place while many around the world were recognizing Data Privacy Day. Intel has been one of the core supporters of Data Privacy Day since its inception. Intel embraces Data Privacy Day’s goal of educating individuals on how they can use technology to provide benefits for their lives, while still having their personal date protected. Intel has been working in several areas to provide recommendations on how we can continue to foster technology innovation, while improving cybersecurity and privacy.
The Egyptian government’s actions call attention to the need of providing strong protections for individuals and companies so they can depend upon technology. Efforts to allow government access to, or control over, private components of the global digital infrastructure have been finding their way to light in many countries. These government attempts to control technology, include providing government the right to take down all, or a portion of, a private network. Any such government ability to impact technology in such a manner, creates substantial privacy concerns for individuals and industry. National security and law enforcement are fundamental obligations of government, but reasonable due process is necessary before government should take steps to access communications or take down private networks.
Several organizations have proposed alternative mechanisms to address government concerns. One example of these efforts are the Cybersecurity Principles authored by the Information Technology Industry Council, which were finalized on January 31st. The ITI Principles focus on building off of existing public-private partnerships and fostering the development of standards, best practices and international assurance programs.
Also distributed on January 31st, was the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Cybersecurity Commission report “Cybersecurity Two Years Later.” I have been honored to sit on the Commission and to take part in some of the discussion that led to this report. The Commission operates as a body to provide input to the Project Director and Co-chairs. By its nature and size the Commission does not endeavor to create a report that all Commission members agree with fully. Not surprisingly, there are elements of the report with which I disagree. However, the document is an important piece of work assembled by some of the best minds in cybersecurity policy.
The report aptly calls for investment in cybersecurity education, more focus on the international implications of a patchwork of differing national regulations of the global digital infrastructure, improvements in the area of authentication and the fundamental importance of meeting the privacy expectations of individuals. Conversely, I do have concern about extending cybersecurity regulations to the private sector component of the “critical infrastructure”, when the report does not define the term. I also find the report too critical of existing public-private partnerships, as many of these activities have focused on building needed trust, while still providing transparency of operation. The Egyptian government’s actions highlight the danger of moving away from structures which create trust between government and industry.
Many companies, like Intel, are investing significantly in privacy and security to make certain individuals will be able to reasonably trust their use of technology. This busy time for privacy and security policy both brings some of these issues to the forefront, and provides useful fodder for debate on how we should move forward.
FPF filed comments with the Department of Commerce on the Privacy Green Paper. To view the comments, click here.
“Any time they make a change, people react, especially if there is a commercial element,” says Jules Polonetsky, director of Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-funded think tank. “But … these are things you’re actively sharing with friends.”
The icon is the result of a collaborative effort between WPP and the Future of Privacy Forum (“FPF”) based on consumer research and testing. FPF, a think tank focused on advancing responsible data practices, worked with leading academics and coalition member companies to conduct consumer research to ensure the creative symbol and language successfully delivered on the goal of informing users about behavioral advertising practices.
For those that don’t know, January 28 is Data Privacy Day. And although you may not have the title of CEO at Facebook, we would like to pretend that you are in charge of it for the day.
So what would you do if you were CEO of Facebook and you had to make some important decisions today? There’s a plethora of issues you need to address, such as hiring more employees to work on new innovations and additional features, and building new data centers that can host the additional servers that will be needed to store the billions of photos and videos users are uploading every month. And you will obviously need more revenue to keep the company growing and see it succeed. Supporting half a billion users and being ready for many millions more is an expensive proposition.
So how exactly can you increase the revenue, when it seems clear that most users would prefer not to pay for the service and enjoy using it for free? Advertising is likely part of the answer, but the most common business model for free web sites involves allowing ad networks to track users’ activity to sell ads on other web sites, something you have refrained from doing. You do yourself use information that users post or share to tailor ads. Some users seem to find those ads relevant, because they do click on them more than ads that aren’t targeted. But others complain that it sometimes feels discomfiting.
So how can you solve this riddle as the CEO of facebook? Some people say you could make the current ads on the site bigger. Or you could allow pop-ups or could make people click through a full page ad to get into the site. Lots of sites do that for the additional revenue it brings in. Users might not like that, but what are the other options?
Is increasing user control and innovations around the advertising experience the solution? Can information that users share be used in a way that actually makes the ads more useful to users (and valuable to advertisers) because they really are relevant, without feeling intrusive? How can we be sure to tell users how the system works so they can see the data that is being used ? How can users be assured the information will only be used to benefit them? Can we give them control of the experience? If you were the CEO of facebook, how would you design a privacy friendly and trustworthy advertising system that would earn the funds to buy those servers and pay the employees, while still keeping users happy? How can you explain this system to users and show them how to use the controls, without making them read trough a long privacy policy? Do you, our reader, have innovative ideas that can support privacy, profits and personalization?
As a think tank focused on advancing responsible data practices, those are the questions that the Future of Privacy Forum is asking our readers to answer on Data Privacy Day. We are social media enthusiasts who value connecting and sharing, but also recognize that online data use requires responsible practices by companies and by users. So help us celebrate this special day by sharing your ideas on our Facebook page. We will make sure to pass the best ideas on to our community of privacy advocates, academics and senior privacy leaders at the companies we work with.
On Data Privacy Day, you can’t be the CEO of Facebook, but you can help us think through the privacy challenges and opportunities that online companies grapple with every day. Find us on Facebook to be part of the Future of Privacy and to share your thoughts about user control, innovation and privacy.
Jules Polonetsky and Christopher Wolf
“There’s no doubt legislators will hold hearings and introduce bills. The question is whether they see leading practices as the ones they want to enshrine,” said Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum. “Legislators aren’t going to drop the notion of legislating. On both sides of the aisle, there is a desire to propose legislation.”