Privacy Issues Overview

Objective

Advocate for workable privacy laws that protect consumers without unduly inhibiting e-commerce.
 
Summary of the Issue

Concerns about individual privacy protection date back more than 30 years to the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 and the Privacy Act of 1974. Since then, other laws have been passed regarding the privacy of video rentals, cable television viewing preferences, telephone conversations, and other similar types of transactions and communications. The Internet and e-commerce, however, have re-opened the subject of privacy protection for individuals who access and use the Internet. There is extensive debate about whether online privacy requires special legislative protection and, if so, what form that legislation should take. While privacy abuses may warrant narrow legislative attention, unintended consequences and disproportionate costs of implementing such legislation must be prevented. The following are key priorities for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

• Industry Self-Regulation Efforts – Business recognizes the importance of a meaningful self-regulatory privacy policy. Third-party online seal programs (BBBOnline, TRUSTe, and Web Trust) foster voluntary privacy measures. In addition, the Platform for Privacy Preferences technology enables individuals to customize their Internet browsers to implement their own privacy standards.
  
• Degree of Privacy Concerns – There is special sensitivity to medical and financial information and information about children. Federal law, namely, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act of 1999, and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 cover these areas.
  
• Data Security and Identity Theft Protection – The majority of privacy bills in the 109th Congress are related to data security and the prevention of identity theft.  These bills would pre-empt state privacy laws by creating national standards that require businesses and other organizations to disclose data breaches, restrict the use of social security numbers, and enable consumers to review the data that is being collected about them.

U.S. Chamber Strategy

• Resist legislation and regulations that impose costly and unnecessary obligations on companies that make use of the Internet in their business by providing comments, testimony, and policy recommendations in legislative and regulatory forums.

Staff Contact Information

Environment, Technology & Regulatory Affairs Division
(202) 463-5533
environment@uschamber.com