Groups Urge Senate Commerce to Add Privacy Groups to Hearing

The Senate Commerce Committee should invite consumer privacy advocacy groups to testify at its hearing on privacy legislation (see 1809130040) or hold a separate hearing with them, a coalition of consumer groups wrote leadership Wednesday. A committee aide told us the panel anticipates holding future hearings on the topic, with an opportunity for other groups to comment: “For the first hearing, the committee is bringing in companies most consumers recognize to make the discussion about privacy more relatable.” A witness list made up of industry representatives makes for a narrow discussion on an issue American consumers care about, the groups wrote. The groups include: Center for Digital Democracy, Center for Democracy & Technology, Common Cause, Consumer Watchdog, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, New America's Open Technology Institute and World Privacy Forum. They said some of the suggestions from privacy groups might be “federal baseline legislation, heightened penalties for data breaches, the end of arbitration clauses, the establishment of a privacy agency in the U.S., techniques for data minimization and algorithmic transparency to prevent the secret profiling of American consumers.”