Information security expert refutes Obama ‘privacy law’ outline

On Feb. 23, President Barack Obama’s administration released an outline of a law it hopes to pass called the “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.”  

The seven key points would give users control of their personal information and how it is collected and used online.

However, IU information security expert Fred Cate said the idea sounds good in theory, but he doubts it would actually help.

“In this day and age, it has repeatedly been shown to be sort of an unworkable principle,” Cate said. “I don’t think it’s easy, but I think it would be better to say that there are just certain things that we need to just make against the law to do with data.”

Cate used the new Google privacy policy as an example to explain his ideas.

“They’ve got all this data about you,” he said. “They’re going to collect it. They’re going to put it all together. How can they do that? Because you consented to it. Because to use their products, you have to consent. Control got you nothing.”

Cate said control is a means of shifting responsibility.

“Control got you no privacy whatsoever,” Cate said. “It just got them legal protection to do what they want.”

— Katie Dawson