 A congressional panel examined the Obama Administration's Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights today. Last month, the Commerce Department released recommendations in its report "Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation and the Global Digital Economy." Although the hearing in the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade focused largely on the collection of data through Internet tracking, the recommendations call for companies to provide consumers with the right to "exercise control over what personal data companies collect about them and how they use it." If such provisions were ever adopted, there could be considerable impact on what information would be available to data brokers. Lawrence E. Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communication and Information, emphasized that the Administration's proposal is voluntary. But the Federal Trade Commission, which issued a similar report earlier this week, called for Congress to enact baseline privacy legislation, including provisions to prevent data breaches regulation of data brokers. Supporting the effort to regulate data brokers, the top Democrat on the Energy & Commerce Committee, Henry Waxman argued that both online and offline data collection by data brokers should be addressed. Testifying for the advertising industry, Mike Zaneis opposed additional regulation of data brokers. He concluded "Providing individual access and correction rights for such data, for most companies operating today, would be prohibitively costly and could require the collection of personally identifiable information that would not otherwise be collected." Several privacy bills are pending in both Houses of Congress. Legislation to prevent data breaches is the most likely to progress through the legislative process. NCISS is concerned that some include restrictions of data brokers and include anti pretexting provisions. Keeping the profession informed, Jimmie Mesis, LPI NCISS Legislative Chairman
NCISS 7501 Sparrows Point Boulevard Baltimore, Maryland 21219-1927 T-(800) 445-8408 F-(410) 388-9746 jim@nciss.org (Permission granted to repost this message) | 
