Technology that determines an individual’s identity or location has been the subject of significant media attention in the first half of 2018: Amazon made news with the sale of its facial recognition technology to law enforcement, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government generally must obtain a warrant to access certain types of geolocation information, California arrested the Golden State Killer using the DNA information of a relative, and Facebook came under fire for the way in which Cambridge Analytica accessed the data of tens of millions of users. Garnering less attention, but of no less importance, are the legislative efforts underway in the federal government and in many states to regulate these emerging technologies and limit the ways in which this information can be collected.
Category: Cybersecurity
FTC Opens Comment Period in Preparation for Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century Hearings
The Federal Trade Commission has opened up public comments for their upcoming Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century.
The hearings will take place during the fall and winter 2018 and will examine “whether broad-based changes in the economy, evolving business practices, new technologies, or international developments might require adjustments to competition and consumer protection enforcement law, enforcement priorities, and policy,” according to the FTC website. FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in a statement that the hearings are modeled after former Chairman Bob Pitofsky’s 1995 Global Competition and Innovation Hearings, which at the time “re-energized one of the FTC’s most valuable functions – to gather leaders in business, economics, law, and related disciplines to discuss tough, emerging problems and prepare public reports on the facts, issues, governing law, and the need, as appropriate, for change.”
Digital Medicine: Health Care Providers’ Side of the Story
Health care technology, particularly digital medicine, promises great new capabilities that will improve outcomes and reduce overall costs and time constraints. Digital medicine encompasses a broad-range of technologies, from technologies used to record, retain, and manipulate health data (i.e., Electronic Health Records aka., EHRs) and thereby make it more useable and amenable to analysis; to actual tools in clinical care (i.e., medical imaging, wearable sensors) that can measure physiological parameters or patient activity and facilitate clinical care and decision-making.
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Attorney General’s Cyber-Digital Task Force Assesses Cyber Threats and Response Efforts in New Report
The Attorney General’s Cyber-Digital Task Force has released its first report, which provides a detailed assessment of the cyber threats facing the United States and discusses the ways the Department of Justice (DOJ) is combatting and preparing to combat those threats.
Is There a “Tech” Bureau in the FTC’s Future?
The Federal Trade Commission has focused some of its recent public statements on technology issues and related enforcement challenges. In this blog post, I provide a recap of those statements, including one before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection.
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Final Report on U.S. Government Policies and Public-Private Frameworks to Address Botnets, Security and Resiliency Challenges Released
This post is part of a continuing DBR on Data series on Executive Order 13800 and updates on its implementation a year after passage.
The U.S. Department of Commerce and the Department of Homeland Security, through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), has released the final report on enhancing the resilience of the Internet and communications ecosystem against botnets and automated distributed threats.