Privacy Concerns and Regulation
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC), a nonprofit consumer organization in United States, published an online FAQ about information brokers. PRC also maintains a list of information brokers, with links to their privacy policies, terms of service, and opt-out privisions.
Introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush on Apr 30, 2009, H.R. 2221 passed through the United States House of Representatives in the 111th Congress, and was revived by the 112th Congress as H.R. 1707. The bill contains a number of requirements for auditing and verification of accuracy of data held by information brokers, and additional measures in the case of a security breach. The bill also gives identified individuals the means and opportunity to review and correct the data held that relates to them.
In March 2012, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report advising businesses and consumers on the protection of privacy, data and digital security. The document, "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change," recommended that Congress "consider enacting targeted legislation to provide greater transparency for, and control over, the practices of information brokers." It noted a "lack of transparency about the practices of information brokers, who often buy, compile, and sell a wealth of highly personal information about consumers," unbeknownst to them. Finding that consumers are "often unaware of the existence of these entities, as well as the purposes for which they collect and use data," the report recommended legislation giving consumers more knowledge of and control over information brokers' use of their data.
Read more about this topic: Information Service
Famous quotes containing the words privacy, concerns and/or regulation:
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—Sir Edmund Leach (20th century)
“Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained—a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems and concerns itself not with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)