White House Releases Draft 'Privacy' Bill That's Not Very Good

from the let's-try-again,-shall-we dept

Fri, Feb 27th 2015 6:23pm — Mike Masnick

It's been talked about for a while, but on Friday, the White House released a draft of what it's calling a "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights." Conceptually, that sounds like a decent idea, but in practice? Not so much. Yes, it's just a draft, but it's got a lot of vague hand-waving, and basically no one seems all that thrilled about it, either from the privacy advocate side or the tech company side. Also, it doesn't even address the biggest privacy concern of all: government surveillance and snooping.

Privacy is, of course, one of those things that can be rather tricky to regulate, for a variety of reasons. Many attempts turn out badly, and don't really do much to actually protect privacy -- while sometimes blocking legitimate and useful innovations. While we're big supporters of protecting one's privacy we're at least somewhat concerned about legislation that appears to be pretty sloppy, and not all that well defined or thought out. This feels like a "we needed to do something, so here's something" kind of draft bill, rather than a "here's a legitimate problem, and here's how to fix it." It feels like a lost opportunity.

Cpbr Act of 2015 Discussion Draft (PDF)Cpbr Act of 2015 Discussion Draft (Text)

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Filed Under: consumer privacy bill of rights, cpbr, privacy, white house

14 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2015 @ 6:53pm

Okay guys, sit your asses back down and try again harder.
No campaign contributions or self-appointed raises until you get it right.
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Barbara Duck, 27 Feb 2015 @ 8:46pm

Agree not very good - can't use words "data sellers" yet
Covered entity, still the catch here and why I started a campaign to index/license data sellers. They can't self regulate as look what we have now. Companies like e-scoring descibe themselves differently so they don't come under federal laws.

I have had mathematicians and quants alike agree, even the Anonymous guys that you need an index on who the players are and without a license, well one can easily say "I'm not a covered entity" Here's my campaign that I informally started 3 years ago.

http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-preserve-our-privacy-/258776

Now let's talk "repackaging" consumer data..hmmm..nothing here to distinguish a legal chunk of data or stolen data and this is huge. Look at the Anthem case, one could sit there and create "data for sale" with tons of simple SQL statements and put the stolen data up for sale on sites like this one who are open for posting and selling data, and they don't do anything except collect a fee for the matching of the buyer and seller.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-data-exchange-buy-and-sell-data-on.html

So now you find flawed data out there about yourself being sold, anyway to track and find the originator with repackaging taking place? No way, burnt myself on that one trying to find the originators of flawed data sold about me.

If sellers and buyers were licensed on legal sales, then we would have a tracking system where consumers could contact and correct flawed data, which we have to do by the way on our own dime too. We license things in this country with a lot less risk, like fishing licenses for an example. Not licensing data sellers is like expecting stock brokers to self govern...not going to happen with the data selling business at $180 billion a year in the US and growing.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Feb 2015 @ 9:25pm

political maneuver
Clearly it is a move towards reauthorization of the patriot act, which expires in June.

First pass a privacy bill to soothe the public, then ...
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Pixelation, 27 Feb 2015 @ 11:14pm

Critical question
Why do we need a privacy bill when we have the 4th Amendment?
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2015 @ 4:35am

Re: Critical question
Because there are issues like Samsung TVs, Verizon's hidden cookies, LG TVs, et al... All legal because the consumer had accepted an agreement that you can't get out of.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2015 @ 5:01am

Re: Critical question
Because the power that be find it 'reasonable' to search and seize you and your assets both digitally and physically.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Feb 2015 @ 7:03am

Re: Re: Critical question
Your data is stolen whether you agree or not, you most likely are unaware it has even happened.
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Cal, 28 Feb 2015 @ 3:11pm

Re: Re: Critical question
Actually they cannot lawfully create a contract that makes you give up your natural rights that are PROTECTED by the US Constitution, that would make the contract (lawfully) "NUll and Void" as the framers said.
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Cal, 28 Feb 2015 @ 3:16pm

Re: Re: Critical question
Actually, that is not quite correct. They do it because we do not hold them accountable as the US Constitution requires of us.

The US Constitution only gave the general government the powers that were specifically enumerated (listed) was the ONLY understanding reached by the states, and held until modern (progressive) unlawful reinterpretations of the Constitution took hold.

Our founders had the ingenious wherewithal to draft a Constitutional model that is based the powers for the general (federal) government that are explicitly spelled out, chiefly in Article I, Section 8 as LAW, the supreme law of this land.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Mar 2015 @ 7:27am

Any new "privacy bill" that doesn't say authorities need a 4th amendment warrant to get communications data or any other data is not a serious privacy bill.
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lockestep, 1 Mar 2015 @ 12:59pm

Sec. 403
No right to take action yourself under the act. Only the government can do so. And it trumps any state laws where you could take action against someone who mishandles your data. So if Anthem is a big campaign contributor, and they disclose your SSN and address, no problem if they have greased the right people.
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justme, 1 Mar 2015 @ 5:18pm

Offensive!
I haven't read the draft, but the title alone is offensive!

The general down grading of American citizen's to mere consumer's allows politicians to rationalize policies that run counter to the wishes of the majority of those citizens, for our own good!

I am an American citizen and until more people demand that they be respected as such, we will continue to be sold out by those who view us as mindless consumers!
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Pragmatic, 2 Mar 2015 @ 7:07am

Re: Re: Re: Critical question
So GW Bush was Progressive? Who'd have thought it?! 0.0

Partisan nitwit-its strikes again. The only cure I know of is to stop watching Fox news.
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cubicleslave (profile), 2 Mar 2015 @ 9:20am

Can we just get a rider on that bill to guarantee that the White House will not renew the Patriot Act? Then we can all get our privacy back from the NSA please? This "privacy bill" has no teeth.
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