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Here's the specific rights they call out: − Individual Control: Consumers have a right to exercise control over what personal data companies collect from them

by jdp23 15y ago

Here's the specific rights they call out: − Individual Control: Consumers have a right to exercise control over what personal data companies collect from them and how they use it. − Transparency: Consumers have a right to easily understandable and accessible information about privacy and security practices. − Respect for Context: Consumers have a right to expect that companies will collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the context in which consumers provide the data. − Security: Consumers have a right to secure and responsible handling of personal data. − Access and Accuracy: Consumers have a right to access and correct personal data in usable formats, in a manner that is appropriate to the sensitivity of the data and the risk of adverse consequences to consumers if the data is inaccurate. − Focused Collection: Consumers have a right to reasonable limits on the personal data that companies collect and retain. − Accountability: Consumers have a right to have personal data handled by companies with appropriate measures in place to assure they adhere to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. As the document points out, it's based on the Fair Information Practices.

thematt 15y ago
You say "that companies will...", but the whitehouse.gov version says "that organizations will...". I think that's quite a significant semantic difference. Is the government subjecting themselves to these same rules?
- jdp23 15y ago
  Interesting. I cut-and-paste from the PDF report, which uses the word "companies". The language in the press release is slightly different.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  Is the government subjecting themselves to these same rules? I don't think you can talk about government as a single entity. but this proposal inclines in that direction. One feature of this administration has been a stronger commitment to openness via Freedom Of Information Act requests. Although this commitment propagates through different agencies at different speeds (depending on budgets, bureaucratic inertia, and political factors), there is certainly an administrative mandate for greater responsiveness to public inquiry. I think this indicated an increased awareness of privacy issues since the identification/specification of information is a necessary first step to challenging the retention or application of such information. I'm not sure that the complex issues surrounding privacy can be addressed with a single bill or even the attractive simplicity of a simple-seeming constitutional amendment. There's a constant tension between rules on the gathering of information vs. rules on its use. Preventing information from being gathered or retained obviously limits the scope for abuse, but also has a distinct opportunity cost - consider the value of individuals' health information in performing epidemiological research, for example. Some argue that since humans are morally fallible and abuses are inevitable, the risk premium of such abuse must exceed the cost of foregone opportunities by definition, pointing to incidences of organizational abuse such as genocide or systematic discrimination. Others (including myself) prefer to look at the risks/costs in probabilistic terms and consider institutionalized secrecy or obscurity to have significant risks of its own.
  - luriel 15y ago
    > One feature of this administration has been a stronger commitment to openness via Freedom Of Information Act requests. Not really: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administration_over_assassination_secrecy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administrati...
    - anigbrowl 15y ago
      Yes really. I'm talking about the overall trend, and acknowledged its unevenness. Contemporary national security activities have always been subject to secrecy considerations in the short term.
einhverfr 15y ago
Reading through this, I wonder how much of this is a bet that consumers will be happy to let folks track them in exchange for cool deals on the theory that now that this is willingly disclosed, the gov. has an easier time arguing the 4th Amendment doesn't apply.....
davidcuddeback 15y ago
Notice it's all about "consumers" and "companies," not "citizens" and "government." I'd hardly call this a bill of rights. It's more like a campaign advertisement for Obama. If I wanted to be more of a conspiracy theorist about it, I might believe that if this were passed into law, it would be to force companies to maintain readily exportable data about their users, which is only a court order away from being exported to government officials.
- pyre 15y ago
  > only a court order away from being exported to government This would actually be an improvement over the current state of affairs where companies are under no legal obligation to force the government to get a court order in many cases.
  - rabidsnail 15y ago
    Fortunately the government can only take data you have. They can't force you to have data (yet). This is not the state of affairs in the telephone network, where every phone company is mandated to have government backdoors installed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...). That law was passed under Clinton, by the way.
  - davidcuddeback 15y ago
    That's a fair point. The main point I was trying to make though is that this "bill of rights" will ensure that companies have already gathered that information into a readily exportable format, thus reducing the friction when the government comes knocking, whatever form that might take.
Shivetya 15y ago
Too bad they don't apply it to the government. I know, the Fourth Amendment is pretty much toast. Still I have come to realize that if you reverse the meaning of the bill's title you get closer to truth. This will simply codify the limits companies have to go to, can go to, without getting into trouble. I am more worried about my privacy rights in regards to government agencies, like the IRS, the myriad of new agencies and regulations that will result from the Affordable Care Act, and that Nazi like Department of Homeland Defense. Got to give the politicians credit, they are deft at redirecting the attention of the masses. Don't look behind the curtain, no no no, instead look over there.
Natsu 15y ago
I like the idea, but how enforceable are those and how will they enforce them? One of the things about information is that you don't really have any way of knowing what other people know.

by jdp23 15y ago

thematt 15y ago

You say "that companies will...", but the whitehouse.gov version says "that organizations will...". I think that's quite a significant semantic difference. Is the government subjecting themselves to these same rules?

jdp23 15y ago
Interesting. I cut-and-paste from the PDF report, which uses the word "companies". The language in the press release is slightly different.
anigbrowl 15y ago
Is the government subjecting themselves to these same rules? I don't think you can talk about government as a single entity. but this proposal inclines in that direction. One feature of this administration has been a stronger commitment to openness via Freedom Of Information Act requests. Although this commitment propagates through different agencies at different speeds (depending on budgets, bureaucratic inertia, and political factors), there is certainly an administrative mandate for greater responsiveness to public inquiry. I think this indicated an increased awareness of privacy issues since the identification/specification of information is a necessary first step to challenging the retention or application of such information. I'm not sure that the complex issues surrounding privacy can be addressed with a single bill or even the attractive simplicity of a simple-seeming constitutional amendment. There's a constant tension between rules on the gathering of information vs. rules on its use. Preventing information from being gathered or retained obviously limits the scope for abuse, but also has a distinct opportunity cost - consider the value of individuals' health information in performing epidemiological research, for example. Some argue that since humans are morally fallible and abuses are inevitable, the risk premium of such abuse must exceed the cost of foregone opportunities by definition, pointing to incidences of organizational abuse such as genocide or systematic discrimination. Others (including myself) prefer to look at the risks/costs in probabilistic terms and consider institutionalized secrecy or obscurity to have significant risks of its own.
- luriel 15y ago
  > One feature of this administration has been a stronger commitment to openness via Freedom Of Information Act requests. Not really: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administration_over_assassination_secrecy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/aclu_sues_obama_administrati...
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    Yes really. I'm talking about the overall trend, and acknowledged its unevenness. Contemporary national security activities have always been subject to secrecy considerations in the short term.

einhverfr 15y ago

Reading through this, I wonder how much of this is a bet that consumers will be happy to let folks track them in exchange for cool deals on the theory that now that this is willingly disclosed, the gov. has an easier time arguing the 4th Amendment doesn't apply.....

davidcuddeback 15y ago

Notice it's all about "consumers" and "companies," not "citizens" and "government." I'd hardly call this a bill of rights. It's more like a campaign advertisement for Obama. If I wanted to be more of a conspiracy theorist about it, I might believe that if this were passed into law, it would be to force companies to maintain readily exportable data about their users, which is only a court order away from being exported to government officials.

pyre 15y ago
> only a court order away from being exported to government This would actually be an improvement over the current state of affairs where companies are under no legal obligation to force the government to get a court order in many cases.
- rabidsnail 15y ago
  Fortunately the government can only take data you have. They can't force you to have data (yet). This is not the state of affairs in the telephone network, where every phone company is mandated to have government backdoors installed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_L...). That law was passed under Clinton, by the way.
- davidcuddeback 15y ago
  That's a fair point. The main point I was trying to make though is that this "bill of rights" will ensure that companies have already gathered that information into a readily exportable format, thus reducing the friction when the government comes knocking, whatever form that might take.

Shivetya 15y ago

Too bad they don't apply it to the government. I know, the Fourth Amendment is pretty much toast. Still I have come to realize that if you reverse the meaning of the bill's title you get closer to truth. This will simply codify the limits companies have to go to, can go to, without getting into trouble. I am more worried about my privacy rights in regards to government agencies, like the IRS, the myriad of new agencies and regulations that will result from the Affordable Care Act, and that Nazi like Department of Homeland Defense. Got to give the politicians credit, they are deft at redirecting the attention of the masses. Don't look behind the curtain, no no no, instead look over there.

Natsu 15y ago

I like the idea, but how enforceable are those and how will they enforce them? One of the things about information is that you don't really have any way of knowing what other people know.