Group Calls For Overhaul Of Privacy Regs

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board says the US's 35-year-old federal privacy law and related policies should be updated to reflect the realities of modern technologies and information systems, and account for more advanced threats to privacy and security. The Board calls for Congress to amend the 1974 Privacy Act and provisions of the 2002 E-Government Act to improve federal privacy notices; clearly cover commercial data sources; and update the definition of "system of records" to encompass relational and distributed systems based on government use of records, not just its possession of them. The panel included technology experts from industry and academia.