Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

Feb 06 2017

When TVs watch you: What we learned from the FTC’s VIZIO case

Television maker VIZIO is paying $2.2 million in penalties to settle charges after the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney General’s office brought a complaint against the company for violating its customers’ privacy. The complaint against VIZIO stated that the company collected detailed information on millions of its customers TV viewing habits without their express consent, and that VIZIO facilitated something called “data appending,” which is when even more detailed information is added to existing customer profiles.

Feb 02 2016

Update: EU, US reach new Safe Harbor deal

Update for February 29, 2016: The US and the European Commission have released new details about the proposed Privacy Shield program. We have published a new post about this release here. Briefly, the US Department of Commerce has released a 132-page package containing the program principles, letters from the FTC, the Department of Transportation, the Office of the Director

Jan 04 2016

Do Not Call List: more than 222 million numbers registered and still growing, but robocall complaints growing

Every other year, the US Federal Trade Commission issues a report about the national Do Not Call registry to Congress. The FTC has recently released its newest report, and by all measures, the Do Not Call registry is still strong and growing. It is not without its snags, however. For example, complaints about robocalls have increased,

Oct 13 2015

EConsumer.Gov: Improved and updated multi-national consumer complaint website

At the World Privacy Forum, consumers frequently approach us and ask us where they can complain about privacy and security issues. It is not unusual for us to hear about issues like online scams and phishing schemes that cross country borders. The Econsumer.gov website is designed to help consumers with exactly these sorts of issues. The

Nov 03 2014

Public comments: WPF urges FTC to focus on providing statistical parity for consumers (Big Data workshop)

WPF urges FTC to focus on consumers’ ability to control their digital exhaust and statistical parity for big data era At the FTC workshop on Big Data September 15, Big Data: Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion?, panelists including the World Privacy Forum discussed legal and ethical frameworks that are applicable to large datasets and issues

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.