Data Brokers

Aug 28 2023

WPF participates in White House Roundtable on Data Brokers

The World Privacy Forum was honored to participate in a White House Roundtable on the topic of Data Brokers, a topic WPF has spent decades researching and working on. In its readout of the roundtable, the White House noted that “Participants underscored how the data broker economy enables discriminatory practices in credit underwriting, insurance, housing,

Aug 07 2023

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

Jun 11 2019

WPF Executive Director Pam Dixon to testify before US Senate on privacy, predictive analytics, and data brokers

Pam Dixon, WPF Executive Director, is testifying before the US Senate Banking Committee today on the topic of privacy, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, data brokers, and predictive analytics. “I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss our research and what we have documented about the privacy of Americans in a predictive analytics era,”

Dec 29 2018

WPF advises FTC regarding privacy frameworks and knowledge governance; files key comments

The World Privacy Forum has submitted a set of key comments to the US Federal Trade Commission regarding privacy frameworks and governance. The comments introduce the idea of knowledge governance and propose frameworks that will work to solve the serious privacy challenges we face in complex data ecosystems.

Dec 19 2018

WPF Statement on NYT revelations of Facebook data practices

WPF is issuing this statement in response to the New York Times article dated 18 December, 2018 regarding Facebook’s data practices. The article provides meaningful new information about the data management and privacy practices of Facebook.

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.
COVID-19 and HIPAA: HHS’s Troubled Approach to Waiving Privacy and Security Rules for the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic strained the U.S. health ecosystem in numerous ways, including putting pressure on the HIPAA privacy and security rules. The Department of Health and Human Services adjusted the privacy and security rules for the pandemic through the use of statutory and administrative HIPAA waivers. While some of the adjustments are appropriate for the emergency circumstances, there are also some meaningful and potentially unwelcome privacy and security consequences. At an appropriate time, the use of HIPAA waivers as a response to health care emergencies needs a thorough review. This report sets out the facts, identifies the issues, and proposes a roadmap for change.