From: Advertising Age
A Privacy Q&A with FTC Chair Ramirez Spotlights Areas the Agency Will Focus On
By Kate Kaye
WASHINGTON — As data becomes the bedrock for more and more businesses, data security is becoming increasingly important. The sheer amounts of data, coupled with headline-making data breaches, has led the Federal Trade Commission to be more active in the space. FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez yesterday took part in a Q&A at the Global Privacy Summit, an event hosted by the International Association of Privacy Professionals here in Washington, D.C., where she talked about a range of topics from de-identification to the need for regulation to international compliance.
1. De-identification
Expect the FTC, 100-years-old this year, to begin working in earnest to develop guidelines for data de-identification. Data collectors often throw around terms like hashing and encryption, tools for stripping personally-identifiable information from consumer data. However, there are no industry standards in place for so-called de-identification, an increasingly necessary process for enabling marketers to employ data while protecting consumer privacy.
“It is still an initiative we’re examining,” said Ms. Ramirez today. “It’s a very fruitful avenue that ought to be pursued,” she said.
Elemental to that project is FTC Chief Technology Officer Latanya Sweeney, who in her academic work as Harvard’s Data Privacy Lab director focused on issues surrounding de-identification and re-identification, or the ability to decipher an individual’s identity despite the fact that de-identification measures have been implemented.
There are limits to the effectiveness of de-identification, said Ms. Ramirez. “I don’t believe that de-identification is a cure-all; it’s not a panacea, but I do believe it is a potentially powerful tool that can be used and ought to be used.”
2. Data Brokers
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