New updates to our Top Ten Opt Out Tips for Consumers

We have updated our popular Top Ten Opt Outs page for consumers. All of the links are fresh, and we have updated the text where it had gotten stale. I am frequently asked which of the opt outs is the most important. Really, that will depend on what is important for you. In general, though, I do have these recommendations:

Do you have kids in school, or are you in school yourself? Be sure to look at the FERPA opt out.
Do you have a bank or savings account, or a credit card? Be sure to look at the Financial Institution Opt Outs. They are important. Now, with many banks offering opt outs online and via the phone, opting out has never been easier.
Are you getting deluged with mailed offers for credit cards? The prescreened offers of credit and insurance opt out will stop those offers from clogging your mailbox.
Are you getting unwanted phone calls? The Do Not Call registry is still a great tool to greatly reduce telemarketing phone calls.

Be sure to let us know if you find a useful opt out; we’ll be sure to consider it in out next update.

–Pam Dixon

Visit World Privacy Forum’s Top Ten Opt Out Page

Posted June 6, 2016 in Consumer Tips, Data Brokers, Do Not Call, Financial Privacy, How-to, Opt Out

New Report: Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new WPF report, “Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools.” This report sets out a definition of AI governance tools, documents why and how these tools are critically important for trustworthy AI, and where these tools are around the world. The report also documents problems in some AI governance tools themselves, and suggests pathways to improve AI governance tools and create an evaluative environment to measure their effectiveness. AI systems should not be deployed without simultaneously evaluating the potential adverse impacts of such systems and mitigating their risks, and most of the world agrees about the need to take precautions against the threats posed. The specific tools and techniques that exist to evaluate and measure AI systems for their inclusiveness, fairness, explainability, privacy, safety and other trustworthiness issues — called in the report collectively AI governance tools – can improve such issues. While some AI governance tools provide reassurance to the public and to regulators, the tools too often lack meaningful oversight and quality assessments. Incomplete or ineffective AI governance tools can create a false sense of confidence, cause unintended problems, and generally undermine the promise of AI systems. The report contains rich background details, use cases, potential solutions to the problems discussed in the report, and a global index of AI Governance Tools.
National IDs Around the World — Interactive map

About this Data Visualization: This interactive map displays the presence...
Report: From the Filing Cabinet to the Cloud: Updating the Privacy Act of 1974

This comprehensive report and proposed bill text is focused on the Privacy Act of 1974, an important and early Federal privacy law that applies to the government sector and some contractors. The Privacy Act was written for the 1970s information era -- an era that was characterized by the use of mainframe computers and filing cabinets. Today's digital information era looks much different than the '70s: smart phones are smarter than the old mainframes, and documents are now routinely digitized and stored and perhaps even analyzed in the cloud, among many other changes. The report focuses on why the Privacy Act needs an update that will bring it into this century, and how that could look and work. This work was written by Robert Gellman, and informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder process.