Cyber Brief: Data Privacy
35+ YEARS OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACTION
Recent years have seen increased interest in data privacy and answering the question of what sort of data collection, by whom and for what purpose, is legitimate. The U.S.’s Federal Trade Commission for years has filed complaints against companies with misleading or malicious data privacy policies, such as its 2012 cases against Facebook and Google. Though the latter of these cases ended in a record $22.5 million civil penalty, and the FTC continues to bring cases against the misuse of consumer data, these questions have remained largely unanswered. Two recent laws have attempted to legislate answers to these questions: the European Union’s 2016 General Data Protection Regulation, which came into effect in 2018, and California’s Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. Both laws, to varying degrees, attempt to limit the ways that companies can collect or use consumer data without notifying the individual.
2018 also saw increased Congressional interest in the issue following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with both the House and Senate holding hearings questioning tech giants about their data security and consumer privacy practices. More recently, several Senators sent letters to Facebook, Apple, and Google about “Project Atlas,” a paid data collection research program run by Facebook which specifically targeted teenagers.
A recent report from NATO highlights the dimensions of this question beyond individual privacy. Inadequate data privacy can allow for malicious actors to track military forces and influence the actions of soldiers. While it remains unclear how the global question of data privacy will be resolved, there are increasing economic and security incentives to find answers.
The following is a collection of documents related to questions of data collection, ownership, and privacy.
Documents
Federal Trade Commission vs., Facebook, Inc. – Complaint, July 27, 2012. Unclassified.
Federal Trade Commission, Privacy & Data Security Update: 2016, January 2017. Unclassified.
Federal Trade Commission, Privacy & Data Security Update: 2017, January 2018. Unclassified.
NATO StratCom COE, Responding to Cognitive Security Challenges, January 2019. Unclassified.