Leading Civil Society Groups Agree on Key Principles: the Commerce Privacy Process Must be Fair, Transparent, Credible

MultiStakeholder Privacy Principles — The World Privacy Forum has led an effort to craft a set of principles with the nation’s leading civil liberties, privacy, and consumer groups. Today, the groups are releasing a set of baseline Multi-Stakeholder Principles in response to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s plan for a multi-stakeholder process on privacy. (The U.S. Department of Commerce is undertaking a representative process for bringing together members of industry and civil society to form new privacy rules.) These leading groups believe that for the multi-stakeholder process to succeed, it must be representative of all stakeholders and must operate under procedures that are fair, transparent, and credible. The World Privacy Forum and the signatories of these baseline principles believe the principles will provide the multi-stakeholder process the legitimacy it needs to succeed. Protecting the online privacy of consumers is crucial to ensuring the availability, utility, and vitality of the Internet. For any approach to privacy to be meaningful, it must reflect fair information practices, including mechanisms to assure accountability. Signatories to the baseline principles include the World Privacy Forum, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Consumer Watchdog, Electronic Frontier Foundation, National Consumers League, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and U.S. PIRG.