FTC Commissioner Brill Starts ‘Reclaim Your Name’ Campaign for Personal Data

Federal Trade Commission member Julie Brill has proposed an industry-wide initiative to give consumers access to their own records held by data brokers. She envisions an online portal where data brokers would describe their data collection practices and their consumer access policies.

Commissioner Brill has come up with a handy nickname for her proposed effort: “Reclaim Your Name.” “Reclaim Your Name would empower the consumer to find out how brokers are collecting and using data; give her access to information that data brokers have amassed about her; allow her to opt-out if she learns a data broker is selling her information for marketing purposes and provide her the opportunity to correct errors in information used for substantive decisions – like credit, insurance, employment, and other benefits,” Commissioner Brill said in a speech at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference in Washington. Participation in a voluntary “Reclaim Your Name” program of the kind Commissioner Brill proposed might help the industry mitigate government efforts toward greater regulation.