Apple CEO Tim Cook lavished praise Wednesday on the European Union’s data privacy rules embodied in the General Data Protection Regulation implemented in May, and at the same time made a strong case for the U.S. government to put in place similar protections for U.S. citizens.  […]

Privacy issues

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) today released its policy and legislative wish list for data privacy, joining a recent wave of tech trade groups including the Internet Association and BSA issuing similarly-themed statements as lawmakers filed data privacy bills this year. […]

Apple

Apple announced on Wednesday that the company will allow users in the United States to download the data that Apple has collected about them–a feature previously only available to citizens of the European Union. […]

Capitol Washington DC Federal
Privacy issues

The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration has issued a request for public comment “on ways to advance consumer privacy while protecting prosperity and innovation.”  The comment solicitation, NTIA indicated, is unlikely to lead to any rulemaking process at least in the near term.  […]

Privacy issues

The Internet Association (IA), a tech association whose members include Amazon, Google and Microsoft, today released its list of six principles–transparency, controls, access, correction, deletion and portability–that the group says should guide future Federal-level privacy legislation and regulation. […]

Here is a map of the states. Well, at least 48 of the 50 states.

A new report from The Century Foundation, a progressive think-tank, urges state law enforcement officials to take action on data privacy regulations in the absence of any substantial movement in that direction by the Federal government. […]

Privacy issues

The Reform Government Surveillance (RGS) coalition, whose members include tech-sector bellwethers such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, called on the Senate to take prompt action to confirm nominees to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), which has only one member currently. […]

As the deadline to renew the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers looms, proposed bills and speculations of bills drive the conversation on national security versus privacy. Senate Republicans led by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., proposed a bill in June to completely renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without any changes or sunset provision. Section 702, which expires at the end of the year, allows the NSA to collect data from foreign nationals without obtaining a warrant. […]

The Supreme Court announced Oct. 16 that it will hear a case on data privacy that relates to Microsoft’s data centers in Ireland. The Department of Justice filed a petition last year requesting an en banc rehearing of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case, which sided in favor of Microsoft that American service providers are not required to honor warrants seeking data outside the United States. […]

The FBI needs access to encrypted files in order to protect the nation against cyber crime, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. “Encryption is essential,” Rosenstein said “It is a foundational element of data security and authentication. It is central to the growth and flourishing of the digital economy. We in law enforcement have no desire to undermine encryption. But ‘warrant-proof’ encryption poses a serious problem.” […]

Government doesn’t take the dangers of metadata security seriously enough, members of industry said at an Institute for Critical Infrastructure event on Sept. 26. They cited the passage of SJ 34, which reduced regulations on Internet service providers’ use of metadata generated by their customers. […]

The American Civil Liberties Union described full adoption of artificial intelligence at any cost as a “recipe for tyranny.” Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, wrote in a blog post that the government needs to consider the rights of citizens as artificial intelligence becomes more ingrained in society. “Liberty is […]

The Government Accountability Office found that the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration needs to clarify its policies for ensuring the privacy of drivers of connected vehicles. Thirteen of the 16 selected automakers in GAO’s study sell connected vehicles, and those 13 reported collecting, using, and sharing data on the cars’ locations and operations. […]

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter to White House Counsel Don McGahn asking for the Trump administration’s rationale in publishing the emails sent by many citizens to critique the President’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, many of which contained sensitive personal information. […]

NSA

In the age of machine learning, there’s a fine line between collecting enough employee data for insider threat programs and ensuring personal privacy, a line that Americans may have to culturally define in the near future, according to experts speaking at an Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) event on Monday. “Are we willing to […]

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Email Privacy Act, a bill that would amend Title 18 of the United States Code to include privacy protections for electronic communications stored on third-party servers. […]

An effort to block or delay changes to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure failed to pass the Senate floor, causing the changes to the rule to go into effect on Dec. 1. The changes will allow law enforcement to obtain warrants to search computers in an unknown location and to search any device that the hacker has broken into, potentially granting access to multiple privately owned computers with one warrant. […]

Edward Snowden, the NSA contractor responsible for leaking information about the U.S. government’s mass surveillance program in 2013, spoke about the impact that President-elect Donald Trump could have on online privacy: “What we need to start thinking about now is not how we defend against a President-elect Trump, but how we defend the rights of everyone everywhere.” […]

Yahoo last year produced a software program that would search customer emails for information specified by U.S. intelligence officials, according to a report by Reuters. Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., condemned such actions, calling them “Big Brother on steroids.” […]

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act , a rule passed in 1998 dictating that parents must grant consent before allowing their children under 13 to access certain websites, must adapt as technology develops, the FTC said. […]

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