Opt Out

May 29 2014

WPF’s Top Ten Opt-Out List is Freshly Updated

We have updated our popular Top Ten Opt Out list with new links and additional information. From key data brokers to credit cards, If you are wondering where to start to get off of lists and whisk your sensitive information out of circulation, we have distilled the most important opt outs to a manageable size. We have included the key opt outs that we ourselves practice with links and tips.

May 27 2014

FTC’s Data Broker Report Brings New Facts to Light about how Consumer Data is Captured and Sold

Forget worrying about loyalty cards or programs: it’s the everyday purchases you make tied to your name with a debit or credit card that can land you on data brokers’ lists. That is one of the many facts that the new FTC report on data brokers sets forth. The report offers a high-level analysis with establishing new fact patterns about the industry based on the Commission’s investigation of nine major data brokers. Overall, we find things to like in the report, but we wish the FTC had gone further in some areas. Here are some of the high points that stood out to us.

Jan 15 2014

Video: Congressional Testimony on Data Brokers – Senate Commerce Committee

Video of Congressional Testimony on data brokers. Pam Dixon gave this testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on December 18, 2013 at a hearing dedicated to shedding light on data broker industry practices and how that affects consumers. The full testimony contains numerous examples of data broker activities, consumer scoring, and discusses the solutions that are needed, including a requirement for data broker opt out.

Dec 18 2013

Data Brokers Opt Out List

Top Ten Opt Out
Opt Out Possible
Partial Out Out
FCRA Opt Out
No Opt Out
Opt Out Unclear

Apr 01 2013

Visiting Scholar Lecture Pacific Northwest College of Art

Visiting Scholar: Privacy in a Modern Era — Pam Dixon is a visiting scholar at Portland’s PNCA. She is scheduled to speak with students in a round of interdisciplinary classes, and she will also be giving a public keynote at 7 pm in Swigert Commons. Her public lecture is on Modern 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.
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.