Advocates Applaud Intent of White House Privacy Bill of Rights; Industry Concerned
As the smoke clears from an initial flurry of reaction, privacy advocates and some lawmakers applauded President Barack Obama's push to protect privacy, with the release of a draft of the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights (CPBR) last week, (see 1502270052), calling the first draft a step in the right direction. Consumer privacy advocates, industry -- with the exception of Microsoft -- and Democratic and Republican lawmakers initially criticized the draft. Privacy groups said in a letter that they were shown a rough draft of the bill a week before its public release and asked several changes be made, some of which were implemented, including changes to "maintain longstanding privacy protections under the Communications Act.” Privacy groups said that if other changes are adopted, the bill could protect consumers. Industry groups, however, maintain the draft is a step backward, with many expressing concerns about innovation, and some saying the bill distracts from critical data security legislation that's needed.
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Fourteen public interest groups sent a letter to Obama Tuesday outlining “shortcomings” of the CPBR draft, as well as thanking the administration for its “willingness” to work with privacy groups to improve the draft. In the letter, the groups, which include the Center for Democracy & Technology, Center for Digital Democracy, Electronic Frontier Foundation, National Consumers League and Public Knowledge, cited 11 “substantial changes” that must be made for the legislation to “effectively protect Americans’ right to privacy,” including giving consumers more control over the collection, use and sharing of their personal information, upholding state privacy laws and giving stronger regulatory and enforcement authority to the FTC (see 1503020033). The groups said their “substantive concerns were compounded by the way in which this bill was developed,” because most were “left out of consultations and were allowed to review the draft only one week prior to its release.” Organizations “outside the Beltway were not able to review the legislation,” the letter said.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, also applauded the administration’s “efforts in protecting consumers.” Though Barton says he has questions about what's included in the first draft, he said that if the “Administration is serious about trying to legislate privacy protections, I will try to work with them in a bipartisan fashion.”
“This is not the time to try and come up with an overarching privacy policy covering a very wide swath,” Dan Jaffe, head of the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) Washington Government Relations office, told us. Instead, the focus should be on breach and data security laws, he said. Having an overarching privacy bill is “very hard to do,” Jaffe said. Three to four years ago, people didn’t talk about mobile apps being used by advertisers, and now it’s a growing multibillion dollar effort, he said. “Who knows what’s going to be next?”
“The draft legislation is having its intended effect -- spurring discussions about a comprehensive federal privacy regime,” wrote Wiley Rein attorneys Megan Brown, Shawn Chang, Kirk Nahra, Scott Delacourt and Christen B’anca Glenn. “In addition to spurring legislative activities on privacy and cyber security, the President's proposal could provide political cover for Members of Congress, especially Democrats, to endorse proposals earlier criticized by privacy advocates,” they said. “This proposal will not become law, but it is part of ongoing efforts on privacy across the federal government, aspects of which could impact the private sector.”
Drafting legislation for technology is tough, Jaffe said. That doesn’t mean “we throw up our hands,” but the White House didn’t do a good job with the CPBR, he said. If the White House believed this draft was important for people to see, it wouldn't have released the proposed bill on a Friday afternoon the same week of the FCC net neutrality vote, the Department of Homeland Security was running out of funding and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was coming to the U.S., he said. The White House sensed the “very negative response” they got, Jaffe said.
“We still firmly believe that an overarching privacy law is critical to protect consumers and build trust in our digital world,” the consumer privacy advocates said in their letter. The groups pledged to work with Congress and the administration to “craft a bill that creates strong, meaningful protections for consumers.” Jaffe said he doubts the guidelines in the CPBR draft will be the “main foundational structure” for a final consumer privacy bill and that Congress will push “something like this all the way through.” He said ANA would participate in multistakeholder meetings regarding the CPBR because there are “specifics in the bill we have problems with.”
The White House had no immediate comment.