US Government 20th Joint Assessment Report, AG Guidelines, and more

There are many transparency documents that have been published relating to the US Intelligence Community. There are new updates to several key documents, which we have listed and linked below. While admittedly dense reading, these are key privacy-related documents relevant to US Government operations and activities and taken together, are an important resource.

January 2021 Updates

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued Attorney General-approved procedures tailored specifically to ODNI. Typically called “AG Guidelines,” the Guidelines are an indispensable tool for understanding the specific rules governing ODNI activities.

ODNI AG-approved procedures (AG Guidelines for ODNI).

March 2021 Updates

The AG Guidelines document linked below contains an important chart with links to the various Attorney General Guidelines for each intelligence element. For example, there are AG Guidelines for the FBI, for the NSA, for the Department of Defense, and so on. Each intelligence unit, or element, has its own distinct guidelines, which may be found linked in the chart.

Attorney General Guidelines for each Intelligence Community Element (AG Guidelines)

The IC On the Record Guide rounds up a variety of key intelligence documents relating to transparency, privacy, and compliance. The reports of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) are linked here, as are querying procedures and various white papers, including a white paper regarding the Schrems II decision in Europe in regards to Section 702.

IC On the Record Guide to Posted Documents (Guide to Posted Documents)

April 2021 Updates

The Joint Assessment is a semi-annual assessment that describes the measures that the US Government has taken to comply with Section 702 procedures. The assessment includes analysis about errors and mitigations taken thus far to correct those errors.

20th Joint Assessment of the FISA Section 702 Program (20th Joint Assessment)

Posted April 5, 2021 in Digitial Identity, EU - US Privacy Shield, Government privacy, Privacy Act of 1974

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.