Data Privacy Day Taking Root in U.S. but Still Low Profile

The Technology Association of America -- newly formed from the AeA and the Information Technology Association of America -- plans an event on the government role in privacy, featuring Rep. David Price, D-N.C., and Alexander Alvaro, a member of the European Parliament and its Civil Liberties Committee from the Free Democratic Party of Germany. It’s 4:30-6:30 p.m. in the Gold Room, 2168 Rayburn House Office Building.

Price is a sponsor, with Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., of H. Res. 31 to recognize Data Privacy Day. It was sent to the House Commerce Committee. Six states -- North Carolina, Massachusetts, California, Washington, Arizona and Oregon -- have officially acknowledged the day, according to Intel and the supportive National Association of State Chief Information Officers.

The privacy-day effort has no express public-policy aims, but it does have implications, Hoffman said. The more that consumers are aware of privacy matters, the more likely elected officials are to pay attention, he said.

Some government agencies in the U.S. are involved in the effort, but apparently not deeply. The main federal participation is sending lawyers from the Justice, Homeland Security and State departments to speak at a Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security conference on national security and privacy at Duke University on Tuesday, Hoffman said. The Federal Trade Commission was listed as a Data Privacy Day supporter in 2008 but isn’t this year. Hoffman said he wasn’t sure of the FTC’s posture, and agency representatives didn’t get back to us right away Friday.

Another event is the Privacy by Design Challenge in Toronto, organized by the office of Ann Cavoukian, the information and privacy commissioner of Ontario province, and the city’s Board of Trade. Intel has an extensive list of events (www.intel.com/policy/dataprivacy.htm).

Data Privacy Day was imported to North America in 2008, its second year, by Leonardo Cervera Navas, an administrator in the European Commission’s internal market and services directorate general who was an EU fellow at Duke. Events were held in 19 states, Puerto Rico and Nova Scotia, Canada, according a report he wrote.

Major corporate supporters include Microsoft, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle. But participation by Internet- specific companies and by other communications providers is spotty, judging from lists provided by Intel. The company lists Google as having been a supporter last year but not this. Google continues to contribute financially, spokesman Christina Chen said. Yahoo, Facebook and MySpace aren’t highlighted as major supporters but are taking some part in Data Privacy Day, according to organizers.

Intel has been acting as a “catalyst and unofficial coordinator” of events in the U.S., Canada, and even in Europe on pan-continental efforts to complement those of individual EU members, Hoffman said. He played down Intel’s role and played up the work of others, including TRUSTe, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and the Centre for Information Policy Leadership of the Hunton & Williams law firm. Intel and other companies have a business interest in helping consumers protect their privacy, because that raises confidence in information and communications technologies, Hoffman said.

The International Association of Privacy Professionals, with more than 5,000 members, is promoting the day on its Web site. But through a Web link and its media representative, the association refers inquiries to Intel’s Data Privacy Day Web page, and the events listed on the group’s calendar Wednesday are for privacy professionals, not the public. Data Privacy Day activity will widen in 2010, Hoffman said, judging by expressions of interest from Australia and New Zealand, where the IAPP is active and from Mexico, Argentina, China, Japan.

A Google News search Friday turned up a couple of news releases, on Toronto events, but no articles on Data Privacy Day. Hoffman said organizers have been concentrating on arranging the events instead of publicity.

Some who make their careers in privacy in the U.S. said Data Privacy Day is barely on their radar. “I've been sort of out of the loop on that,” said Evan Hendricks, editor of Privacy Times, dismissing the activity as a “celebratory event.” Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said she hasn’t been following the day closely. Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the group isn’t taking part, but supports “any attempt to foster awareness of data privacy issue, and [we] are glad that more companies are recognizing that robust privacy protections are critical to building consumer trust in new technologies.”

Robert Smith, publisher of the Privacy Journal, disdained the effort. Because “there is no privacy focal point in our government, the U.S. is kind of an afterthought” for the organizers, he said by e-mail. “The corporate interests who took it over here traditionally ignore the pro-privacy community. … When corporate interests grab the privacy issue, it is bound to be cautious, myopic, and ill-informed. … Privacy Day went totally unnoticed in 2008, even among the hard-core privacy community.” He said Privacy Journal “received not one announcement about it.”

But the Electronic Privacy Information Center is enthusiastic about Data Privacy Day. The goal is “to remind the public that… privacy remains a critical concern, and that we need meaningful solutions, not the self-regulation that has resulted in sky-rocketing identity theft and security breaches,” said President Marc Rotenberg. “We believe that an international instrument based on the rule of law, support for democratic institutions, and respect for fundamental human rights is vital to safeguard privacy and we will urge countries that have not yet signed the Council of Europe Convention 108 to do so.” The group is working through affiliate Public Voice, including with a Facebook page, to drum up support among civic groups internationally, Rotenberg said.

A conference featuring federal regulators among other speakers, on the “Privacy and Security of Consumer and Employee Information,” is being held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Washington, D.C. But it’s not tied in to Data Privacy Day, said a representative of the American Conference Institute, the organizer. “It’s just coincidental,” she said.