A Call For Creation Of Federal Privacy Agency
A recent call has been made for the United States to create a federal privacy agency to promote the protection of personal privacy and implement the more internationally recognized principles of Fair Information Practices. In an article prepared for the Enforcing Privacy Rights Symposium, on November 15 and 16, 2002, Robert Gellman presented the idea of the establishment of the Privacy Protection Board.
With consideration given to the history of the Civil Rights Commission, the Privacy Protection Board would be an independent agency of the executive branch without regulatory powers. Gellman argues that establishment of the Board is needed as no existing American institution plays the role of fact finder, investigator, policy resource, and opinion leader for privacy. The Board's members would be appointed by the President, and confirmed by the Senate. Its most important mission would be to promote the adoption and implementation of protections for personal privacy and principles of Fair Information Practices. Such principles include collection limitation, data quality, purpose specification, use limitation, security safeguards, openness, individual participation, and accountability.
The European Union is the world leader on data protection and on national data protection agencies. Today, each EU member state has a data protection authority, as do more than a dozen other countries. To be without a data protection agency put the US to a disadvantage, as the resolution of many international privacy matters come principally through the cooperation of national privacy agencies. No country that established a data protection agency has later abolished it.
For more on this article as well as the Draft Privacy Protection Board Legislation in the article's Appendix, see:
Sypmosium: Enforcing Privacy Rights: Remedying Privacy Wrongs--New Models: A Better Way to Approach Privacy Policy in the United States: Establish a Non-Regulatory Privacy Protection Board, 54 Hastings L.J. 1183 (April, 2003).
