The Privacy Coalition is a nonpartisan coalition of consumer, civil liberties, educational, family, library, labor, and technology organizations that have agreed to the Privacy Pledge. Members of the coalition have been meeting since 1995, but formalized the organization in February 2001. View a list of member organizations.
Latest Posts
Mary Ellen Callahan Discusses DHS's Role in Cybersecurity
August 4, 2010Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) met with the Privacy Coalition at its July 2010 meeting. She spoke about the agency's Cybersecurity programs that provide oversight and compliance for all of DHS and .gov. Congresswoman Jackie Speier's Legislative Counsel Erin M. Ryan also spoke at the meeting regarding a new bill on Financial Privacy Information. Other topics addressed at the meeting included: better FBI oversight and use of the Guidelines for Threat Assessment; Children as subjects of surveillance; the introduction of a new health policy advocacy network; and broader use of RFID tagging on consumer products.
Posted by EPIC on August 4, 2010
Jon Leibowitz FTC Chair Met with Privacy Coalition in June
July 13, 2010Jon Leibowitz, Chair of the Federal Trade Commission met with the Privacy Coalition for its regular monthly meeting. The Coalition also received a briefing by Jumana Musa, Policy Director for the Rights Working Group on the Department of Homeland Security Secure Communities Program. Jeff Greenspan, Campaign for Liberty provided a briefing on Arizona's SB 1070 law and its impact on federal access to state held databases. Odetta Wilkens, Executive Director of Equal Justice Alliance, on Animal Rights Activists and Enforcement of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act provisions, which allow prosecutions based on web page publishing of political views or reporting of protest events if any of the provision of the law are violated by protesters.
Posted by EPIC on July 13, 2010
May Monthly Privacy Coalition Meeting: SSA Creating Option for Beneficiary Applicants to be Screened by Experian
May 28, 2010Alan Lane, Associate SSA, CIO, Office of Open Government briefed the privacy coalition on agency efforts to create an online benefit application process for those seeking benefits from the agency. Part of this new process would allow Experian the credit reporting agency to verify the identity of applicants register online for benefits. SSA signed a contract with Experian and the SSA new application process is not expected to be available until early next year. There are privacy issues with the accuracy of Experian's records, the use of phone numbers or addresses to authenticate applicants, as well as rampant identity theft fostered by the credit granting industry because of how they authenticate people when granting credit. Dr. Latanya Sweeney, a Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy in the School of Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and Director and Founder of the Data Privacy Lab also briefed the Coalition on the privacy harms and uses of the proposed National Health Information Network's (NHIN) plans for sharing patient information when it goes into broad use in January. The Privacy Coalition has sought a meeting with National Coordinator Blumenthal on the issue of the NHIN and privacy. Dr. Sweeney identified several vulnerabilities in the current plan and stated that the planning is not considering policy approaches to minimize the potential harms nor create a matrix of approaches to the problem to better evaluate, which and under what circumstances each would be possible.
Posted by EPIC on May 28, 2010
Privacy Coalition Members Join Letter that Results in Howard Schmidt Meeting
May 12, 2010Over 30 organizations including many Privacy Coalition participants, launched a campaign to obtain a meeting with Howard Schmidt, the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator. Groups joining the letter included the ACLU, American Library Association, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Liberty Coalition, NAACP, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Center for Media and Democracy, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The White House has agreed to the meeting, which follows Senate confirmation of Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, to lead the U.S Cyber Command. Civil society organizations have expressed concern about the growing role of the NSA in cyber security. EPIC is currently in litigation with the NSA to obtain the secret policy for NSA surveillance authority.
Posted by EPIC on May 12, 2010
Fifteen Privacy Groups File FTC Facebook Compliant
May 9, 2010Privacy and consumer protection organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, charging that Facebook has engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices in violation of consumer protection law. The complaint states that changes to user profile information and the disclosure of user data to third parties without consent "violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook's own representations."
Posted by EPIC on May 9, 2010
Privacy.org headlines
Hospital Network to Explain Proposed New Federal Privacy Rule (Aug. 10, 2010)
Apple Moves to Protect Privacy of iPhone Users (Jun. 24, 2010)
Senators Propose ID Requirements to Purchase Pre-paid Phones (Jun. 22, 2010)
PI Says Google Had Criminal Intent in SpyFi (Jun. 9, 2010)
Federal Court Ruled that Not Public Facebook Content is Protected (Jun. 9, 2010)
Social Networking Services are Treasure Trove for Civil Cases (Jun. 8, 2010)
Connecticut Seeking Wifi Info from Google (Jun. 7, 2010)
Yahoo First to offer Share Option for E-mail (Jun. 3, 2010)