WPF advises FTC regarding health data breach notification rule

The World Privacy Forum filed comments regarding the US Federal Trade Commission’s 2023 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding Health Breach Notification. This marks the second set of comments WPF has filed, our first being in 2009 regarding the first iteration of the Health Breach Rule.

The comments are technical, and focus on the fundamental challenges that the unregulated segment of the health data ecosystem poses to consumers. Additionally, the comments discuss at length certain definitional and scope issues with the proposed rule. Of these issues, the greatest challenge in the rule are the definitional challenges. The comments discuss these challenges at length, and propose a solution of “the 80-20 rule.” WPF suggested that instead of attempting to cover 100 percent of all problems with difficult definitional boundaries, that the Commission cover 80 percent of the problems cleanly, with both clear and enforceable definitional boundaries.

WPF also requested that the FTC hold a workshop to seek solutions to consumer health data breach problems, and that the FTC create a public listing of all breaches in a portal similar to what HHS does with its breaches.

Related documents:

Posted August 7, 2023 in Data Breach, Data Brokers, Data Ecosystems, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health Privacy

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.
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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.

WPF advises FTC regarding health data breach notification rule

Related documents:

Comments of WPF Regarding FTC Health Breach Notification Rule, PDF (11 pages)

Federal Register, FTC Health Breach Rule Notice of Proposed Rulemaking