Privacy Act of 1974

Jun 01 2018

WPF comments on the DHS External Biometric Records database

The World Privacy Forum has submitted detailed comments on the US Department of Homeland Security’s External Biometric Records database (EBR database), which DHS describes as a large biometric and demographic database drawn from foreign and domestic sources. WPF has a number of concerns about the proposal, including that the EBR database is slated to be exempted from

Jun 13 2017

EU-US Privacy Shield Update

In recent days, there has been an uptick in discussion regarding the potential fate of the EU-US Privacy Shield. Some of the discussion has been spurred by Cam Kerry’s recent analysis of several critical weaknesses of the EU-US Privacy Shield, which is now under review by the European Commission. The other impetus for discussion is via

Feb 24 2017

Analysis & Report | Redress Revisited: Has the Privacy Shield Agreement Between the U.S. and the EU Been Fatally Undermined by President Trump’s Executive Order 13768?

This analysis is an in-depth look at the January 2017 Executive Order 13768, Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, and its interaction with two laws, the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Judicial Redress Act of 2015. Regardless of the reasons underlying why the order was written, a key question this analysis considers is if the order damages the EU-US Privacy Shield agreement, and what that means.

Oct 26 2016

New proposed Privacy Act guidance: Federal Agency Responsibilities for Review, Reporting, and Publication under the Privacy Act

The World Privacy Forum submitted comments today on an important proposal from the US Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget regarding a circular directing agencies how to write, post, review, and generally handle Privacy Act notices. The proposal, called Circular A-108 Federal Agency Responsibilities for Review, Reporting, and Publication under the

Oct 19 2016

WPF asks US DOJ to retain Privacy Act fairness standards in new system of records

The World Privacy Forum filed a pair of comments about a US Department of Justice proposal regarding treatment of insider threat records at the FBI. Our first comments respond to a Systems of Records notice, our second comments respond to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the same issue. In our first set of comments

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.