Privacy Law

Oct 18 2017

The Profound Implications of U.S. v. Microsoft

In the world of privacy and global digital communications, the case of the United States v. Microsoft is a big deal. In June 2016 Microsoft won a victory in the case in the U.S. 2nd Circuit. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court surprised many when it announced that it granted a petition to review Microsoft’s

Dec 17 2015

Europe has reached agreement on new Data Protection Regulation

After four years of negotiations, the EU Commission, Parliament, and Council have reached a final agreement on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR is an omnibus data protection law which sets arguably the most extensive data protection laws globally, along with strong enforcement authority. The new law contains many new provisions that move

Jun 02 2015

News Release: WPF to comment at Privacy Law Scholars Conference

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 2, 2015 San Diego — Pam Dixon will be the commenter for a scholarly paper at the annual Privacy Law Scholars Conference to be held this year in Berkeley, California. “It is an honor to be invited to be the commenter for a paper to be presented at PLSC,” said Ms.

Jan 12 2015

Privacy News: Obama launches sweeping privacy plan

President Obama announced a sweeping set of proposals around privacy today as he spoke from the venue of the FTC. The World Privacy Forum is pleased with the announcement, but retain some concerns. “We are pleased to see the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights head into actual legislation at long last, but we are concerned

Dec 26 2014

Privacy News: A decade-plus of compliance reports from the NSA Intelligence Oversight Board

On Christmas Eve, the US National Security Agency (NSA) declassified and released 12 years of reports outlining compliance violations that were submitted to the NSA Intelligence Oversight Committee. The reports, which are required by law, had previously been classified and were the subject of a legal battle between the ACLU and the government. Although heavily redacted, the reports the NSA released of are vital interest to the public because they reveal a pattern of significant privacy violations and in some cases serious abuses in granular detail.

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.