When is a Biometric No Longer a Biometric?
In October 2021, the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) published a Request for Information (RFI) regarding uses, harms, and recommendations for biometric technologies. Over 130 entities responded to the RFI, including advocacy organizations, scientists, experts in healthcare, lawyers, and technology companies. While most commenters agreed on core concepts of biometric technologies used […]
Diverging fining policies of European DPAs: is there room for coherent enforcement of the GDPR?
The European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) puts forward a non-exhaustive list of criteria in Article 83 that Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) need to consider when deciding whether to impose administrative fines and in determining their amount in specific cases. Notoriously, the ceiling for administrative fines put forward by the GDPR is high […]
FPF at the 2022 IAPP Global Privacy Summit
Last week, IAPP held its first in-person annual Global Privacy Summit in Washington, DC since 2019! Through expert panels and our expo booth, FPF remained active during this two-day conference, with our CEO Jules Polonetsky holding a conversation with FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips, our data privacy experts speaking and providing their expert analysis at the […]
FPF Statement on the EU/US Transatlantic Data Agreement
March 25, 2022 — This morning the European Union and the United States came to a breakthrough agreement in principle, which allows Europeans’ personal data to flow to the United States. Future of Privacy Forum’s CEO Jules Polonetsky said: We are encouraged to see progress in the important effort to ensure that cross-border EU-U.S. research, […]
How the Kenyan High Court (temporarily) struck down the national digital ID Card: Context and Analysis
The High Court of Kenya, by virtue of a judicial review application, delivered a landmark judgment declaring the proposed national digital ID card (Huduma Card) unconstitutional on October 14, 2021 – a judgment that is now part of the growing data protection and privacy jurisprudence in the country. Kenya enacted its first Data Protection Act […]
BCI Commercial and Government Use: Gaming, Education, Employment, and More
This post is the third in a four-part series on Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), providing an overview of the technology, use cases, privacy risks, and proposed recommendations for promoting privacy and mitigating risks associated with BCIs. Click here for FPF and IBM’s full report: Privacy and the Connected Mind. In case you missed them, read the […]
The State of Play – Issue Brief: COPPA 101
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), enacted by Congress in 1998, aims to give parents more control over the information collected about their children online. The law requires operators of games, websites, apps, and other online services catered to users under the age of 13 to obtain permission from a child’s parent before collecting information about […]
BCIs & Data Protection in Healthcare: Data Flows, Risks, and Regulations
This post is the second in a four-part series on Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), providing an overview of the technology, use cases, privacy risks, and proposed recommendations for promoting privacy and mitigating risks associated with BCIs. Click here for FPF and IBM’s full report: Privacy and the Connected Mind. In case you missed it, read the […]
Understanding why the first pieces fell in the transatlantic transfers domino
Two decisions issued by Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) in Europe and published in the second week of January 2022 found that two websites, one run by a contractor of the European Parliament (EP), and the other one by an Austrian company, have unlawfully transferred personal data to the US merely by placing cookies (Google Analytics and Stripe) provided by two US-based companies on the devices of their visitors.
5 Tips for Protecting Your Privacy Online
Today, almost everything we do online involves companies collecting personal information about us. Personal data is collected and regularly used for a number of reasons – like when you use social media accounts, when you shop online or redeem digital coupons at the store, or when you search the internet. Sometimes, information is collected about […]