COVID-19

Feb 08 2022

WPF participating in T20 Indonesia inception conference: Realizing inclusive recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic

The T-20 is a formal multi-stakeholder organization that feeds into the G20 each year. This year, Indonesia is the host for the G20 and the T20. WPF has been invited to participate in this year’s T20 inception conference as a research group. The conference will be held over two days on 9 and 10 February.

Dec 07 2021

WPF advises OSHA re: employee vaccination information

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has published its proposal regarding how employee vaccination information will be treated by employers. WPF’s analysis has found a meaningful loophole in privacy protections, and has proposed a remedy to OSHA.

Sep 15 2021

WPF urges HHS National Vaccine Advisory Committee to extend privacy protections of vaccination information

In public testimony September 15, 2021, WPF’s Executive Director urged the Department of Health and Human Services National Vaccine Advisory Committee Committee to establish broadened protections for covid-19 vaccination data, including extending the existing CDC Guidance (from May 2021) prohibiting commercial marketing use of vaccination registration information or other vaccination data. The intersection between HIPAA privacy regulations

Aug 13 2021

WPF supports CDC guidance prohibiting use of vaccine recipients’ data for commercial marketing purposes, urges that protections are extended to proof of vaccination systems

WPF’s Executive Director spoke today before the US Center For Disease Control’s ACIP Committee regarding privacy protections for vaccine recipients’ data. WPF supported the CDC’s prohibition on the use of vaccine recipient data for commercial marketing purposes. The CDC’s Vaccination Program Provider Requirements, published in May 18, 2021, specifically prohibits the commercial marketing use of

Aug 04 2021

C20 – G20 Global Dialogue on Health, WPF statement

On August 4, 2021, WPF participated as a member of the Civil20 – G20 Global Dialogue on Health. The dialogue was moderated by C20 Global Health co-chair Rachel Ong, with concluding comments by co-chair Kurt Frieder. Davide La Cecilia, Diplomatic adviser to the Italian Minister for Health and former Ambassador of Italy to Ukraine, participated

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.