US Congress Committee Talking About Privacy

rm007 writes "The US House of Representatives Judicial Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law is holding hearings on the Privacy Officer for the Department of Homeland Security and approved the Defense of Privacy Act. The DHS Privacy Officer hearings are to examine how well the incumbent, Nuala O'Connor Kelly, is doing and whether the statute creating the position sufficiently addresses concerns about the handling of personally identifiable information. This should be worth watching. Wired News has an article that covers both of these as does GovExec.com, a newsletter for senior Federal employees."

Comments

There is no Constitutional right to privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem here is that there is no Constitutional right to privacy.

Sure, some use amendments to imply one, but it just is not there, and the same amendments can be used to imply such things as a supposed "right to security" which can erode a supposed "right to privacy".

Time for an amendment.

Re:There is no Constitutional right to privacy

[BranMan]

Actually, the Constitution is very specific - I paraphrase: "Any right not enumerated is considered to belong to the people". Since privacy is NOT mentioned, it cannot be infringed by the Federal Gov. - the people have a right to privacy.

The framers, and the drafters of the "Bill of Rights" did not want to fall into the trap of forgetting something, so they made sure they had a safety net in place. They weren't dummies.

while this is true...

[tuxette]

Yes. Data on us are recorded every time we use a credit card or use the phone or buy a plane ticket or whatever else. However, the difference between the US and the EU is what can be done with this data.

Apparently in the US, "anything goes." Companies promise to keep data private, only to sell or transfer it to third parties, as in the case of several airlines. Sensitive personal data is outsourced to countries like India and Pakistan for processing. What happens? The natives can threaten to release this data if they're not paid a certain amount of money.

In Europe, EU and individual national laws dictate that this data can among other things only be used for a specific purpose determined before data collection, not be used for other purposes, and not be released to third parties without the consent of the data subject. Furthermore, personal data cannot be transferred to countries that do not have privacy laws equivalent to or stronger than the Directive.

The EU Directive is the rule; countries in the EU and EEA are required to have national privacy laws based on the Directive.