Online privacy

House Democrats want to use the coming months to execute a bold tech agenda ahead of the 2020 presidential election, but they may need to make peace with each other first. While Democrats insist they bring a unified front to the issue of online privacy, they're kicking off this year with a clash between Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a thought leader on privacy issues, and House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), who's committee is responsible for shepherding any such legislation. “If Democrats can’t agree with each other, how can they come to a single position with the Republicans?"

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai refused to brief House Commerce Committee staff on why the FCC has yet to end wireless carriers’ unauthorized disclosure of consumers’ real-time location data and what actions the FCC has taken to address the issue to date.

There is a growing chorus of voices calling for national data privacy legislation in the United States. Not surprisingly, stakeholders have offered competing visions for what such a law should look like. Designing data privacy legislation involves a complex process that must address a wide array of legal and regulatory issues.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai requesting he provide an emergency briefing to Committee staff on why the FCC has yet to end wireless carriers’ unauthorized disclosure of consumers’ real-time location data and what actions the FCC has taken to address the issue to date. Chairman Pallone wrote that an emergency briefing is necessary in the interest of public safety and national security, and therefore cannot wait until President Donald Trump decides to reopen the government. 

Despite the failures of our current online privacy ecosystem, some lawmakers are considering doubling down on policies that do not work. But no matter how much control companies give us over our data, it will never work online. That’s because control and transparency place the burden on consumers to protect themselves and understand where their data is going. And they must do this for every one of the dozens (or more) online accounts they may have.

Google and other search engines shouldn’t be forced to apply the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” beyond the bloc’s borders, an adviser to the EU’s top court argued. The recommendation—if followed by the EU’s Court of Justice—would be a major victory for Google, which has for three years been fighting an order from France’s privacy regulator to apply the EU principle globally.  Maciej Szpunar, an advocate general for the court, argued in a nonbinding opin

Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) has blasted US wireless carriers for continuing to sell their users' location data after they promised to end the practice in June 2018. Sen Wyden renewed calls for Senate to adopt his legislation to ban carriers from selling mobile subscribers' location after a Motherboard report revealed that T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint continue to sell location data to third-party aggregators that are allowing the data to be resold on the black market to anyone willing to pay. 

Will this new Congress be the one to pass data privacy legislation? So far the Senate has done the most visible work. And, with a variety of stakeholders contributing input, will this be enough to bring about passage? As a committed optimist, it’s my belief that there is a sweet spot where business interests and privacy advocates can converge.

Hundreds of cities, large and small, have adopted or begun planning smart cities projects. But the risks are daunting. Experts say cities frequently lack the expertise to understand privacy, security and financial implications of such arrangements. Some mayors acknowledge that they have yet to master the responsibilities that go along with collecting billions of bits of data from residents. Concerns have intensified as Kansas City prepares to expand its technology experiment from downtown to poor neighborhoods on the city’s East Side.