U.S. Mulling Big Data Policy

Mar 20

How Privacy, Security Concerns Should Govern Use

The Obama administration is in the midst of a four-week effort to get the public to chime in on policies the federal government could develop regarding the privacy and security of big data.

In January, while addressing new limits placed on intelligence agencies in collecting telephone metadata, President Obama tapped his counselor, John Podesta, to lead a group that would seek to forge international norms for how to manage big data and how the government could promote the free flow of information in ways that are consistent with privacy and cybersecurity (see Obama Orders Review on Use of Big Data).

“The power of new technologies means that there are fewer and fewer technical constraints on what we can do,” the president said at the time. “That places a special obligation on us to ask tough questions about what we should do.”

On March 4, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a request for information seeking comment on a potential big data policy. The group, headed by Podesta, President Clinton’s former chief of staff, includes the secretaries of commerce and energy and the president’s science and economic advisers. A report, which is expected to be issued in mid-April, should address how big data might motivate changes in government policies across a range of sectors.