SIIA Cloud/Gov Conference to Focus on Federal IT Reform
SIIA is excited to announce that Federal CIO Steven Van Roekel has been added to the Cloud/GOV agenda as our opening keynote speaker next Tuesday, Feb. 12. VanRoekel joins an already impressive lineup of government and industry speakers, including Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and many high-level federal IT officials. The event will provide a comprehensive look at recent and proposed federal policy changes that promise to greatly alter the Federal IT landscape, including focuses on emerging Cloud and FedRAMP-related issues, and the convergence of the cloud and “big data” analytics.
If you haven’t yet done so, register, or contact Mike Hettinger with questions.
In Wake of WCIT, Internet Governance Returns to Capitol Hill
Today, three House subcommittees hosted a joint hearing on Internet governance. Specifically, the focus of hearing was the fallout from the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) last December, where there was strong support among many nations for a proposal to bring the Internet within the regulatory purview of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations agency. Despite the refusal of the USG and 54 other nations to sign the treaty, Chairman Walden has correctly framed the WCIT as the “start, rather than the end, of efforts to subject the Internet to international regulation.”
Also a topic of the hearing is draft legislation proposing to make it the policy of the United States to promote a global Internet free from government control. While SIIA strongly supports the intent of the legislation, President Ken Wasch sent a letter to the Subcommittee leaders urging modification to the draft legislation to clarify that it’s regulation from unelected bodies like the ITU that needs to be avoided, rather than establishing the Internet as a “government-free zone.”
FTC Weighs in on Mobile Privacy
Last Friday, the FTC issued another staff report on mobile privacy, making recommendations for mobile platforms (operating system providers), app developers, advertising networks and analytics companies, and app developer trade associations, mainly aimed at providing enhanced privacy disclosures about the data they collect and how the data is used. This comes a day after the NTIA-led multistakeholder discussions concluded its ninth meeting, where significant progress appears to be emerging in a cooperative effort towards a voluntary code of conduct. In response to the report, SIIA posed a reminder to the FTC that the increase in “mobile” devices doesn’t represent a shift to the increase in personalization of devices.
It’s hard to tell how these recommendations will impact the ongoing multistakeholder discussions, if at all. But perhaps more important was the settlement announced by the FTC the same day with social networking provider, Path. In the Settlement Path agreed to settle FTC charges that it deceived users by collecting personal information from their mobile device address books without their knowledge and consent. Most importantly for companies providing mobile apps is the FTC’s victory in charging Path with “misleading” practices and not providing customers with meaningful choice regarding collection of their personal information, because the app – contrary to notice provided to users – automatically collected and stored personal information from the users mobile device address book even in the absent of consent.
Once again, the FTC is demonstrating that it will aggressively enforce its current authority by charging companies that are misrepresenting, or at least believe to be misrepresenting, their data collection practices.
EU Cybersecurity Strategy Reportedly Imminent
Reports suggest that the European Commission will be releasing its cybersecurity proposal on Thursday, February 7, and that it will impose strong new requirements on all entities doing business in Europe. The proposal will be backed by the Commission’s directorate general for foreign policy and defense, technology and telecommunications, and home affairs. The basic rational for the new regulatory proposal is market failure. The draft document concludes: “The current situation in the EU, reflecting the purely voluntary approach followed so far, does not provide sufficient protection against network and information security incidents and risks across the EU.”
David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy. Follow the SIIA public policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPubPolicy.