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White House: Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights

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  • EPIC's Rotenberg Urges State Attorneys General to Safeguard Consumer Privacy: Speaking at the annual conference of the National Association of Attorneys General, EPIC President Marc Rotenberg said that the state AG's cannot sit on the sidelines as consumers face increasing risks of identity theft, security breaches, and secretive profiling. Rotenberg said the onus shouldn’t be on consumers to keep up with every-changing policy practices. “There is no reason that a customer should have to go back and check their privacy settings when a company changes its business practice." The Attorneys General recently fined Google $7 m for violating state consumer protection laws when the companies vehicles, loaded with Internet packet sniffers, intercepted private residential communications. EPIC has also launched a promotional video "Good to Really Know" with information for consumers about online privacy. For more information, see EPIC: Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and EPIC: Consumer Privacy. (Apr. 16, 2013)
  • EPIC Urges FTC to Develop Meaningful Privacy Protections for Mobile Services: EPIC has submitted comments to the Federal Trade Commission concerning "Advertising and Privacy Disclosures in a Digital World". The FTC is currently exploring ways businesses could improve privacy notices for mobile devices. EPIC pointed out that many of the techniques, such as privacy icons, suffer from the same problems as traditional privacy notices. EPIC recommended that the FTC focus instead on substantive privacy protections, such as those found in the federal Privacy Act, sectoral privacy laws, and the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, proposed by the White House. An earlier FTC report called for new privacy legislation and an FTC investigation documented privacy problems with mobile applications for children. For more information, see EPIC: Federal Trade Commission. (Jul. 11, 2012)
  • EPIC Calls on FTC to Develop Substantive Privacy Protections at Workshop on Mobile Advertising: EPIC submitted comments to the Federal Trade Commission for the May 30 workshop on mobile advertising disclosures. EPIC recommended that the agency focus on the development of substantive privacy protections, such as the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights announced by the President earlier this year, for mobile services. EPIC also recommended that the workshop address a series of problems with the "notice and consent" approach, as well as the merits of innovative, nonverbal approaches proposed by privacy scholars. The workshop follows an FTC report calling for privacy legislation and an investigation that documented privacy problems with mobile applications for children. For more information, see EPIC: Federal Trade Commission. (May. 11, 2012)
  • EPIC to Commerce Department: Establish Privacy Rights: EPIC submitted comments to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Department of Commerce, urging the agency to implement the principles set out in the White House Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. The Department of Commerce announced it would convene a multistakeholder process to develop enforceable codes of conduct for consumer privacy protection. EPIC wrote that the Administrative Procedures Act is a more effective and transparent way to solicit public comment and produce a meaningful outcome. For more information, see EPIC: White House - Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and EPIC: Administrative Procedure Act Comments. (Apr. 4, 2012)

Background

Building on the recommendations of a Green Paper on Privacy and Innovation released by the Department of Commerce's Internet Policy Task Force in December 2010, the Administration released Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Economy. The report contains a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights with the following principles:

  • Individual Control: Consumers have a right to exercise control over what personal data companies collect from them and how they use it.
  • Transparency: Consumers have a right to easily understandable and accessible information about privacy and security practices.
  • Respect for Context: Consumers have a right to expect that companies will collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the context in which consumers provide the data.
  • Security: Consumers have a right to secure and responsible handling of personal data.
  • Access and Accuracy: Consumers have a right to access and correct personal data in usable formats, in a manner that is appropriate to the sensitivity of the data and the risk of adverse consequences to consumers if the data is inaccurate.
  • Focused Collection: Consumers have a right to reasonable limits on the personal data that companies collect and retain.
  • Accountability: Consumers have a right to have personal data handled by companies with appropriate measures in place to assure they adhere to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.

In introducing the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, President Obama stated that "even though we live in a world in which we share personal information more freely than in the past, we must reject the conclusion that privacy is an outmoded value. It has been at the heart of our democracy from its inception, and we need it now more than ever.”

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