FTC commissioner calls for way to ‘reclaim your name’
Consumers should be able to retake control of data collected by websites and data brokers, Brill says — IDG News Service - U.S. consumers should be able to reclaim control of their personal data from data brokers, websites and other companies …
Context & Ripple Effects
Brill’s intervention extends the FTC’s earlier privacy-by-design framework from how companies build services to whether consumers can regain control over data already held by websites and data brokers. It also follows earlier FTC criticism of Google’s privacy practices, keeping large online data holders in the agency’s policy frame.
First-order effects
- Data brokers and websites are directly put on notice that the FTC’s privacy discussion is shifting toward consumer control over previously collected personal data.
- The FTC gains a more concrete policy objective than privacy principles alone: mechanisms that let consumers reclaim data held by companies.
Second-order effects
- Companies built around collecting and retaining user data face pressure to distinguish data necessary to operate a service from data consumers should be able to control or recover.
- The agency’s privacy-by-design agenda becomes harder to treat as a purely prospective product-design issue when it is tied to data already in brokers’ and websites’ records.
Third-order effects
- If the FTC turns this consumer-control principle into enforceable expectations, privacy competition would move beyond disclosure toward the practical rights users have over data after collection.
The trend: U.S. privacy policy is moving from company-led notice and design principles toward consumer access and control over personal data held across the online economy.