EPIC Executive Director Testifies in House Hearing on Breach of Trust: Surveillance in Private Spaces

EPIC Executive Director Alan Butler will testify today before the House Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation Subcommittee in a hearing entitled: “Breach of Trust: Surveillance in Private Spaces.” This hearing addresses a question that has been a central focus of modern privacy law since it was first developed more than a century ago—how can the law preserve our right to be let alone in response to technological developments that make intrusion, monitoring, coercion, and abuse easier and less expensive? 

As Butler explains in his written submission to the committee: 

His testimony will also provide background on how technological advances in surveillance capabilities and cultural shifts have shaped privacy law in the United States, how the recent development and deployment of connected devices on a broad scale poses substantial risks to privacy, and how current law does not provide sufficient protection. EPIC will encourage the Subcommittee to investigate the extent to which privacy threats posed by widespread monitoring in semi-private and other shared spaces are exacerbated by cloud storage, data analytics, and viral dissemination systems. 

In his written testimony Butler also highlighted that “we find ourselves now in a period where the rapid expansion of pervasive computing has embedded tracking capabilities in our lived environment. This is a time for action on all fronts to work to preserve the values enshrined in our Constitution and our laws, to ensure that we as individuals do not fall victim to the eradication of privacy by path of least resistance.” 

EPIC advocates for laws, regulations, and policies that safeguard user privacy and protect users from technology-facilitated abuse and harassment, including actions against stalkerware developers. EPIC regularly comments on regulations and testifies on policies to promote better cybersecurity practices that protect consumer data from unauthorized access and other misuse.