Online privacy

If Democrats are able to wrest control of the White House and Senate in November, dramatic changes could come to the Federal Communications Commission and US communications policy. Net neutrality would be the major issue revisited. A Democratic-controlled FCC might seek to re-establish a role for the FCC in ISP privacy regulation, especially if Congress does not enact a federal consumer privacy law covering ISPs.

[Ari Fitzgerald is a partner at Hogan Lovells]

Among smart city enthusiasts, digital inclusion — the idea that nobody in the city should be deprived of digital technologies — is an oft-repeated social objective. Despite lofty commitments, the smart city is still a work-in-progress and its record in fostering social inclusion and diversity has been dismal so far. If technological interventions are as apt to deepen divides as redress them, why do proponents insist on the smart city’s promise of lessening urban inequalities?

To help organizations balance building innovative products and services that use personal data while still protecting people’s privacy, NIST is offering a new tool for managing privacy risk. Developed in collaboration with a range of stakeholders, the framework provides a set of privacy protection strategies for organizations that wish to improve their approach to using and protecting personal data.

A Massachusetts judge has ordered Facebook to turn over data about thousands of apps that may have mishandled its users’ personal information, rejecting the tech company’s earlier attempts to withhold the key details from state investigators.

Google's Chrome team, advancing its web privacy effort, later in 2020 will begin testing the "privacy sandbox" proposals it unveiled in 2019. The Chrome tests are part of an effort to make it harder for publishers, advertisers and data brokers to harvest your personal data without your permission and to track you online. Other browsers, including Apple's Safari, Brave Software's Brave, Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's new Chromium-based Edge, have pushed steadily to cut tracking for the last few years.

Attorney General William Barr declared that a deadly shooting in Dec at a naval air station in Pensacola (FL) was an act of terrorism, and he asked Apple in an unusually high-profile request to provide access to two phones used by the gunman. AG Barr’s appeal was an escalation of an ongoing fight between the Justice Department and Apple pitting personal privacy against public safety.

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century—the digital century—it is time for the public interest to reassert itself. Thus far, the digital entrepreneurs have been making the rules about the digital economy. Early in this decade, We the People must reassert a visible hand on the tiller of digital activity. Will public policy intervene to protect personal privacy? Can our leaders act to preserve the idea of a competition-based economy?

Google has struck partnerships with some of the country’s largest hospital systems and most-renowned health-care providers, many of them vast in scope and few of their details previously reported. In just a few years, the company has achieved the ability to view or analyze tens of millions of patient health records in at least three-quarters of US states. In certain instances, the deals allow Google to access personally identifiable health information without the knowledge of patients or doctors.

Almost six months after Facebook agreed to a $5 billion settlement of privacy violations, the issue is anything but settled. The deal with the Federal Trade Commission announced in July to settle allegations that Facebook broke its promises to protect users’ privacy is still under review by a federal judge, who has been weighing objections from opponents who believe the deal is inadequate.

Reps Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Tim Walberg (R-MI) introduced the Preventing Real Online Threats Endangering Children Today (PROTECT) Kids Act. This bipartisan legislation modernizes the Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) to better protect our nation’s children from the myriad of threats posed by an ever-evolving digital landscape. The PROTECT Kids Act: