White House Releases Draft 'Privacy' Bill That's Not Very Good
It's been talked about for a while, but on Friday, the White House released a draft of what it's calling a "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights." Conceptually, that sounds like a decent idea, but in practice? Not so much. Yes, it's just a draft, but it's got a lot of vague hand-waving, and basically no one seems all that thrilled about it, either from the privacy advocate side or the tech company side. Also, it doesn't even address the biggest privacy concern of all: government surveillance and snooping.
Privacy is, of course, one of those things that can be rather tricky to regulate, for a variety of reasons. Many attempts turn out badly, and don't really do much to actually protect privacy -- while sometimes blocking legitimate and useful innovations. While we're big supporters of protecting one's privacy we're at least somewhat concerned about legislation that appears to be pretty sloppy, and not all that well defined or thought out. This feels like a "we needed to do something, so here's something" kind of draft bill, rather than a "here's a legitimate problem, and here's how to fix it." It feels like a lost opportunity.
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Privacy is, of course, one of those things that can be rather tricky to regulate, for a variety of reasons. Many attempts turn out badly, and don't really do much to actually protect privacy -- while sometimes blocking legitimate and useful innovations. While we're big supporters of protecting one's privacy we're at least somewhat concerned about legislation that appears to be pretty sloppy, and not all that well defined or thought out. This feels like a "we needed to do something, so here's something" kind of draft bill, rather than a "here's a legitimate problem, and here's how to fix it." It feels like a lost opportunity.
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