Federal privacy legislation
According to an article in BNA's Executive Report:
Staffers for the House Energy and Commerce Committee are drafting a comprehensive privacy bill that is expected to be introduced in June, committee counsel David Cavicke said May 5. Cavicke said that Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) is committed to moving the legislation forward, but he acknowledged that it will be a "multi-year effort" to get it enacted.
Congress has contemplated, and resisted, passing comprehensive privacy legislation since the mid-1990's, when the primary concerns involved consumer privacy related to growing online commerce. Instead, there have been various state legislatures which have passed a variety of measures targeting spam, identity theft, spyware, etc. Chairman Barton has long been a supporter of federal privacy legislation, so his intentions are not surprising -- although the timing might be. And some in the IT industry, notably Microsoft, have begun stating a preference for a single, broadly-applied federal standard for privacy protection as a way to avoid multiple conflicting standards in multiple jurisdictions. Similar arguments have been forwarded to address the disparity between US and European privacy regulations -- that unification means simplification.
The risk, of course, is that one standard for privacy is only a good idea if that standard is workable. That's putting a lot of trust in federal politicians to get it right, in a field where they have very little technical understanding. That strategy also assumes that states are going to be complicit in letting the federal government set the rules, and pre-empt their authority. Historically, the trial bar, state AG's and other powerful entities have resisted federal legislation that pre-empts state laws or standards -- because it reduces the number of venues where perceived "bad actors" can be prosecuted. And conservative "states rights" legislators have philosophically opposed similar legislation on grounds that states should have autonomy as laboratories of experimentation on public policy. The end result may very well be an onerous and ill-conceived federal privacy standard that serves as a floor, rather than a ceiling, on regulatory intervention.
And the impact on RFID? Depending on the scope of the bill, RFID systems will likely be expected to meet the same standards as more developed and better financed data systems.
By the way, Joe Barton is scheduled to be in our offices in San Diego next month for a discussion on intellectual property protection. I'll let you know if we discuss RFID and data privacy.
is there anyone in the Senate who shares Rep. Barton's thinking and would likely offer similar legislation?
Yes. There are numerous Senators of both parties who have expressed interest in comprehensive privacy legislation over the years.
In fact, I think it was in 1999 or 2000 that Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina was pushing a comprehensive online privacy bill that got lots of support and attention for a while. He has now retired, but there are plenty more ready to grab the privacy mantle...
Please See www.immuneid.com