A Chinese submission last week of a revised sensitivities list for the Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is a promising gesture but represents inadequate concessions, said industry officials as U.S. negotiators prepared to meet ITA participants in Geneva this week. The participants are convening this week in Geneva to push ITA expansion conclusions by the World Trade Organization Bali ministerial meeting in December. The revised list hasn’t been made public, said industry officials. But it marks an important move forward, said Stephen Ezell, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation senior analyst: “The sensitivities list is still too restricted, too narrow. There needs to be a broader set of products in a final expansion deal.” The ITA hasn’t expanded since its 1996 inception. Negotiations collapsed in June after the Chinese released a broad set of sensitivity product lines, said panelists at an industry event earlier this month (CD Oct 9 p15). The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative had no comment. The sensitivities list includes harmonized system product lines that governments don’t want to receive duty-free status in a final expansion deal. “U.S. industry is very wed to getting an ambitious outcome,” said an industry executive. “The ITA has not been updated in 16 years and includes none of the most innovative product lines,” he said. The Chinese play a fundamental role in potential expansion but there need to be concessions from other countries as well, said the executive. The 70 total ITA participant countries stand to benefit significantly, said Ezell. “We estimate that a fully expanded ITA, meaning an agreement that has the full set of products laid out by U.S. negotiators, will strengthen the global economy by $190 billion a year,” he said.
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Four senators called for new surveillance principles, at a news conference at the Capitol Wednesday on legislation to end the U.S.’s phone metadata collection and make other changes. The bill pulls together elements of several different proposals introduced in Congress, the four said. The Senate has questioned how to update U.S. intelligence agency law since leaks emerged in June from then-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
With a second derecho wind storm in a year threatening Washington, the FCC Technological Advisory Council took up communications resiliency Thursday. Russ Gyurek of Cisco, chairman of TAC’s Resiliency Working Group, said the group will look at ways to improve network resiliency during both disaster and cyberattacks, with a report to be ready by December.
New EU data protection rules must be flexible so companies can innovate and consumers can take advantage of new services, said the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association, European Competitive Telecommunications Association, GSM Association Europe and Cable Europe Tuesday. They hosted a joint event at the European Parliament to discuss a European Commission-proposed regulation aimed at updating privacy laws for the digital age. It’s “essential” that the new measure strike the right balance between data protection and creating economic and social opportunities and benefits from technology and data, the trade associations said. The future rules should let responsible companies “unlock the potential of personal data to drive new digital services that consumers are demanding,” which will generate economic growth and jobs, they said. The draft regulation, which seeks to harmonize the 27 fragmented data protection regimes, could speed the digital single market for telecom services, giving Europeans better online experiences, they said. Moreover, a consistent data protection level will boost consumer trust and confidence while ensuring people’s private data are protected, they said. The objectives of safeguarding the right to privacy and business needs aren’t mutually exclusive, said ETNO Board Chairman Luigi Gambardella. ETNO welcomes the effort to reform data protection rules to make them more harmonized and consistent and to create a system that takes into account the “inherently global dimension of data processing,” he said. The organization believes all companies processing data of EU citizens should comply with EU rules, wherever their geographical location, he said. But ETNO also wants a risk-based approach used in the final version of the regulation, he said. It would tie obligations set on businesses to the nature of the data they handle and their reasons for processing it, keeping in mind the importance of not hampering digital innovation, he said. ETNO also believes responsible companies, which have always complied with privacy rules, shouldn’t be overburdened with rules, he said. A stronger risk-based approach could entail such measures as cutting administrative burdens on small and mid-sized companies, and allowing a bigger role for codes of conduct and certification mechanisms, he said. For example, the use of “pseudonymous data,” which is particularly helpful in research and online behavioral advertising, should be encouraged because there’s a lower risk of privacy violations, he said. However, giving data controllers the incentive to use such data should be balanced with fundamental rights protections and accountability, he said.
Promoting the free flow of data and better understanding of U.S. privacy standards should be priorities for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in trade negotiations with the EU, trade associations said in response to a call from the USTR for comments on an upcoming trade negotiation between the U.S. and the EU. Public Knowledge advocated that the negotiations -- named the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) -- remain open and not interfere with U.S. copyright law reform.
The Maryland Public Service Commission wants utilities to perform better after last year’s June derecho storm, which caused many power and communications outages in the Mid-Atlantic. The commissioners focus on measures electric utilities should take, but include some communications concerns as well as point to the significance of electricity for telecom. “Telephone service for more and more people is dependent on electricity; computers, modems, and handheld devices may have backup battery capacity but eventually require a power source,” the PSC said in its Wednesday order (http://bit.ly/YZm2jZ). “As this use of the various appliances and technologies has increased, perhaps without being fully aware of it, our dependence on electricity has also increased.” Among its recommendations, the PSC directs companies to submit “a report on any improvements made to communications systems since the Derecho” by March 29 and a report “on any further improvements planned and a timetable for completing such improvements” by May 31, the order said. These improvements may translate into mobile applications for handheld devices and smartphones, according to the commission. The order urges the companies to harmonize their telephone and website messages during outages and wants customers notified of what’s going on. Utilities should “provide timely and accurate information as to restoration efforts that are underway (crew status with status levels clearly defined and ETR) via telephone, mobile application and website; download applications for mobile access to information with such information updated at a defined minimum interval; and incorporate dynamic notification capabilities into customer information systems such as alternate contact information during outages, and choice of notification method (phone/text/email) and preferred time of day of notification,” the PSC said.
President Barack Obama touted his executive order on cybersecurity during his State of the Union speech Tuesday as a step to “strengthen our cyberdefenses by increasing information sharing, and developing standards to protect our national security, our jobs, and our privacy,” and urged Congress to pass legislation to further the order’s goals. Enemies of the U.S. are “seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, and our air traffic control systems,” he said. “We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy."
The FCC Thursday adopted by a 5-0 vote rules designed to streamline the commission’s experimental licensing program, including rules for new medical devices that will allow the industry to set up testbeds and share their results. One of the most contentious issues was whether the FCC would require licensees to provide more than 10 days notice before making changes in an experiment (CD Jan 25 p4). The agency did not change the notification period, in response to complaints from carriers, led by Verizon Wireless, officials said.
The satellite industry backed the FCC’s effort to streamline Part 25 rules for earth and space station licensing processes and offered revisions to some technical standards, in comments in docket 12-267. NCTA, NPR and some satellite entities expressed concerns about rules for the Automatic Transmitter Identification System (ATIS). Comments on the rulemaking notice approved at the Sept. 28 FCC meeting (CD Oct 1 p10) were due Monday.
The European Commission plans to deal with troublesome online content issues starting next year, it said Wednesday after an “orientation debate” called by President José Manuel Barroso. With Europe’s digital economy predicted to grow seven times faster than its overall gross domestic product in the next few years, the EC wants to ensure that copyright rules work in the digital context, it said. Parallel tracks will deal next year with several issues where quick progress is needed, with decisions coming in 2014, it said. The EC hasn’t really tackled those matters until now, focusing instead on studies and limited topics such as collective licensing and orphan works, EC sources said. But the Digital Agenda mid-term review, due Dec. 19, is expected to name copyright reform as a top priority, and government leaders want concrete acts to spur the digital single market. There wasn’t enough work being done on the critical issues, and then the polarized focus on enforcement in the context of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) made things worse, they said.