Highlights From the FTC’s Privacy Roundtable: Part 1


Note: This article originally appeared on the J.C. Neu & Associates Blog

The FTC’s December 7th Privacy Roundtable assembled a Who’s Who of privacy luminaries, academics, advocates, and industry players. This post highlights some of the more interesting comments from the meeting. I also tweeted the event (@aarontitus, #FTC #Privacy or #ftcpriv) and the FTC has posted the webcast if you missed it.  The next Roundtable is scheduled for January 28, 2010 in Berkeley, CA and will also be broadcast online.

The meeting consisted of five panels. This posts highlights "Panel 5: Exploring Existing Regulatory Frameworks:"

  • During Session 5, Intuit’s Chief Privacy Officer Barbara Lawler posited that existing regulatory frameworks unfairly place the entire burden on consumers to protect themselves. "Consumers should expect a safe marketplace. They shouldn’t be the ones to police the marketplace," she said.
  • Barbara Lawler also noted that "Data is never really at rest," because it’s moving between data centers and backups in multiple locations throughout the globe. It is therefore incorrect to think of data, especially Cloud data, as being in one place. Instead, "data is in one place and many places at the same time," potentially in multiple jurisdictions.
  • Evan Hendricks of Privacy Times and Marc Rotenberg of EPIC suggested that the current model of "Notice and Consent" has failed to protect consumers, and that the FTC (and legislation in general) should return to well-established Fair Information Practices (FIPs), including a prohibition on "secret databases." Mr. Rotenberg went so far as to conclude that Notice and Choice principles are not a subset of FIPs, but instead "stand in opposition to fair information practices." He also joked that "the best part of Graham-Leach-Bliley Act is that you get paper notices you can tape on your window and get more privacy."
  • Ira Rubinstein of New York University School of Law proposed that self-regulation is not binary or "monolithic," and that a self-regulatory scheme would be preferable, especially if viewed as a "continuum, based on government intervention." He argued that self-regulation would be especially appropriate in the United States, which has traditionally been very friendly to e-commerce.
  • Michael Donohue of OECD gave an overview of international legal concepts of privacy which generally agreeing with Marc Rotenberg’s observation that "most countries have come to surprisingly similar conclusions about privacy."
  • J. Howard Beales of the GWU School of Business argued in favor of a "harm-based model," because it is impossible to reach the best solution without first defining the harm. Marc Rotenberg responded that privacy harms are almost never financial.
  • Several panelists emphasized that privacy can be highly (and appropriately) subjective. One cited an example from a balding friend of his, "I don’t care if anyone knows that I use Rogaine, but my 70-year-old grandmother would."
  • Fred Cate of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research emphasized that the Notice and Consent model is flawed because some activities should not be consentable. For example, one may not "consent" to be served fraudulent or misleading advertising. Likewise, some uses of personal information should be prohibited and non-consentable. Most importantly, Notice and Choice are only tools– not the goal of privacy.
  • After Panel 5 was done, Bureau of Consumer Protection Director David C. Vladeck said the FTC would investigate whether it is better to give consumers notice how their personal information may be used: 1. At the time of collection, or 2. At the time of use.
  • David C. Vladeck also said that the data broker industry warranted FTC attention because it is "largely invisible to the consumer."

More highlights on the other sessions to come.

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