[LINK] Big Data Privacy Report

[Stephen Loosley]

BIG DATA: SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES, PRESERVING VALUES

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/big_data_privacy_report_may_1_2014.pdf

May 1, 2014

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

We are living in the midst of a social, economic, and technological revolution. How we com-municate, socialize, spend leisure time, and conduct business has moved onto the Internet. The Internet has in turn moved into our phones, into devices spreading around our homes and cities, and into the factories that power the industrial economy. The resulting explosion of data and discovery is changing our world.

In January, you asked us to conduct a 90-day study to examine how big data will transform the way we live and work and alter the relationships between government, citizens, businesses, and consumers. This review focuses on how the public and private sectors can maximize the bene-fits of big data while minimizing its risks. It also identifies opportunities for big data to grow our economy, improve health and education, and make our nation safer and more energy efficient.

While big data unquestionably increases the potential of government power to accrue un-checked, it also hold within it solutions that can enhance accountability, privacy, and the rights of citizens. Properly implemented, big data will become an historic driver of progress, helping our nation perpetuate the civic and economic dynamism that has long been its hallmark.

Big data technologies will be transformative in every sphere of life. The knowledge discovery they make possible raises considerable questions about how our framework for privacy protec-tion applies in a big data ecosystem. Big data also raises other concerns. A significant finding of this report is that big data analytics have the potential to eclipse longstanding civil rights protec-tions in how personal information is used in housing, credit, employment, health, education, and the marketplace. Americans’ relationship with data should expand, not diminish, their opportuni-ties and potential.

We are building the future we will inherit. The United States is better suited than any nation on earth to ensure the digital revolution continues to work for individual empowerment and social good. We are pleased to present this report’s recommendations on how we can embrace big data technologies while at the same time protecting fundamental values like privacy, fairness, and self-determination. We are committed to the initiatives and reforms it proposes. The dia-logue we set in motion today will help us remain true to our values even as big data reshapes the world around us.

Signed: Counselor to the President, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Energy, Director Office of Science & Technology, Policy Director National Economic Council

Policy Recommendations: 

This review also identifies six discrete policy recommendations that deserve prompt Administration attention and policy development. These are:

* Advance the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. The Department of Commerce should take appropriate consultative steps to seek stakeholder and public com-ment on big data developments and how they impact the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and then devise draft legislative text for consideration by stakeholders and submission by the President to Congress.

* Pass National Data Breach Legislation. Congress should pass legislation that provides for a single national data breach standard along the lines of the Admin-istration’s May 2011 Cybersecurity legislative proposal.

* Extend Privacy Protections to non-U.S. Persons. The Office of Management and Budget should work with departments and agencies to apply the Privacy Act of 1974 to non-U.S. persons where practicable, or to establish alternative privacy policies that apply appropriate and meaningful protections to personal infor-mation regardless of a person’s nationality.

* Ensure Data Collected on Students in School is Used for Educational Pur-poses. The federal government must ensure that privacy regulations protect stu-dents against having their data being shared or used inappropriately, especially when the data is gathered in an educational context.

* Expand Technical Expertise to Stop Discrimination. The federal govern-ment’s lead civil rights and consumer protection agencies should expand their technical expertise to be able to identify practices and outcomes facilitated by big data analytics that have a discriminatory impact on protected classes, and devel-op a plan for investigating and resolving violations of law.

* Amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Congress should amend ECPA to ensure the standard of protection for online, digital content is consistent with that afforded in the physical world—including by removing archaic distinctions between email left unread or over a certain age.

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Cheers,
Stephen