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WPF Statement to the Civil Society Consultation on Sustainable Health Security Preparedness and Response, C20, 2021

The World Privacy Forum participated in the C20 Civil Society Consultation on Sustainable Health Security Preparedness 20 April, 2021, part of the preparatory work for the G20 health-related declaration. (Rome Declaration.) In our attached statement to the C20 / G20, we outline three key requirements to allow safe and sustainable health data ecosystem knowledge utilization, including privacy and effective data governance, interoperability, and robust inclusion of LMICs and vulnerable or marginalized populations in standards development.

Gender Matters in Identity Systems: How an ID4Africa Livecast Broke Important New Ground in Gender and Privacy 

Recently, ID4Africa held an extremely compelling and meticulously researched livecast on the issue of gender and identity systems, with good discussions that also touched on privacy in this context. The livecast boasted an excellent roster of experts, all of whom are active work in the field. Each presented well-substantiated, groundtruthed research and insight about the myriad ways that how identity systems mediate gender matter a great deal. The cumulative effect was eye-opening. 

US Government 20th Joint Assessment Report, AG Guidelines, and more

There are many transparency documents that have been published relating to the US Intelligence Community. There are new updates to several key documents, which we have listed and linked below. While admittedly dense reading, these are key privacy-related documents relevant to US Government operations and activities and taken together, are ...

WPF urges US Federal Trade Commission to re-examine data breach notification requirements for health data in Flo Health proposal

The World Privacy Forum has submitted comments to the FTC regarding its proposed consent order In the Matter of Flo Health, Inc. requesting that the FTC conduct further analysis regarding the FTC Health Data Breach Rule and its potential applicability to the alleged unconsented sharing of women's pregnancy, menstruation, mental ...

WPF comments on European Commission proposal for new Health Authority

The European Commission has proposed the creation of a new European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority, HERA. WPF provided comments regarding the proposal, urging the Commission to ensure from the outset that HERA will fulfill its mission with a focus on data interoperability and will include specific data governance ...

Addressing Cross-Border Spillovers in Data Policy: The Need for a Global Approach

Global debates about data governance standards have primarily reflected the priorities and needs of rich countries, with less wealthy countries left in the role of “standards takers.” More needs to be done to ensure that digital governance policies pursued by the world’s largest economies do not create unintended consequences that make it harder for other countries to support a strong domestic digital economy and participate in the global digital economy. This is a joint blog post by Michael Pisa, Center for Global Development, WPF's Pam Dixon, and Benno Ndulu, Oxford Professor.

Archived Privacy Policy 2018-2021

Archived Privacy Policy, May 2018-Jan. 2021. This privacy policy was updated May 2018 and is effective May 25, 2018. Earlier versions of our policy are linked at the bottom of the page. This privacy policy applies to the World Privacy Forum web site, www.worldprivacyforum.org, and to other privacy activities of ...

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy was updated January 2021 and is effective January 25, 2021. Earlier versions of our policy are linked at the bottom of the page. This privacy policy applies to the World Privacy Forum web site, www.worldprivacyforum.org, and to other privacy activities of the World Privacy Forum. Personal information ...

FTC proposes precedent-setting face recognition settlement: photo app company must delete consumers’ photos and the algorithmic models it developed using the photos

The FTC has proposed a crucially important settlement with a photo app developer, Everalbum Inc., which the FTC says “deceived consumers about its use of facial recognition technology and its retention of the photos and videos of users who deactivated their accounts.” The proposed FTC settlement will require the company ...

Comments of World Privacy Forum to EDPB re: data localization and privacy

WPF provided feedback on the European Data Protection Board's Recommendations 01/2020 on measures that supplement transfer tools to ensure compliance with the EU level of protection of personal data. In responding to the Recommendations, we found several areas which, if improved, would enhance the stated goals of the EDPB for ...

New Zealand’s New Privacy Law 2020 is Now in Force

New Zealand has meaningfully updated its privacy law, The Privacy Act 2020, which took force December 1. The new Privacy Act 2020 is a significant advancement of New Zealand’s privacy law, and encompasses numerous changes, including: Data Breach Reporting Obligations : There are new reporting obligations for data breaches. Companies ...

Governing Data for Development: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

The World Privacy Forum is pleased to announce its work on a new project with the Center for Global Development (CGD). This project, Governing Data for Development, is led by CGD, with WPF's Executive Director Pam Dixon as co-chair of the project working group with co-chair and Oxford professor Benno Ndulu, who is also the former Governor of the Central Bank of Tanzania. The project, which has been underway for a year, has produced its first report, which is a scoping report based on interviews with key stakeholders. This blog post, which provides background on the project and links to the first project report, is being jointly posted at WPF and CGD.

World Health Organization updates its data sharing principles; WPF participant in external expert advisory group

This summer, the World Privacy Forum served as a member of the World Health Organization’s External Expert Group on Data Principles . We are pleased to announce that WHO has now published its updated data principles and data sharing policy, as of October 2020. While there are additional items that ...

WPF executive director Pam Dixon to present lecture at National Academy of Sciences on the future of data science and privacy

Executive Director Pam Dixon to present a featured lecture at National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine at its Colloquium: The Future of Data Science Pam Dixon’s lecture will be Wednesday October 28 from 12:00-12:45 am Eastern. Looking Ten Years Ahead: Key Converging Technologies in Computing, Data, and Analysis and ...

WPF advises that DHS biometric collection proposal needs scientific, factual, ethical, and human rights basis, urges creation of transparent multistakeholder process to work on ethical guidelines regarding childrens' biometrics

The World Privacy Forum filed comments with DHS regarding its proposed new rules regarding biometric collection, and asked DHS to reconsider the rule and to apply the science, ethics, and international conventions regarding the protection of victims of human trafficking to the rule prior to moving forward. WPF found that ...

COVID-19 and HIPAA: HHS’s Troubled Approach to Waiving Privacy and Security Rules for the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic strained the U.S. health ecosystem in numerous ways, including putting pressure on the HIPAA privacy and security rules. The Department of Health and Human Services adjusted the privacy and security rules for the pandemic through the use of statutory and administrative HIPAA waivers. While some of the adjustments are appropriate for the emergency circumstances, there are also some meaningful and potentially unwelcome privacy and security consequences. At an appropriate time, the use of HIPAA waivers as a response to health care emergencies needs a thorough review. This report sets out the facts, identifies the issues, and proposes a roadmap for change.

Africa’s Rising Leadership in Privacy: breaking new ground before and during the COVID-19 crisis

Numerous African countries, having passed new privacy laws during and after the time the GDPR was being negotiated, have broken new ground by advancing privacy thought in new and important ways which stretch past the boundaries of the GDPR and contextualize privacy for African contexts. The COVID-19 crisis represents a major test of some of the new data governance systems.

Face Recognition and Face Masks:  Accuracy of face recognition plummets when applied to mask-wearers; NIST report 

NIST has published its first report regarding face recognition algorithms and the wearing of face masks. The report quantifies how one-to-one face recognition systems perform when they are utilized on images of diverse people wearing a variety of mask types and colors. The study found that pre-COVID-19 FR algorithms have substantial error rates, some reaching as high as 50 percent for false non-match rates.

HHS makes significant changes to COVID-19 reporting process

The Department of Health and Human services has announced major changes for hospitals' COVID-19 data reporting processes. HHS has also made changes to the types of data that hospitals must report, expanding the data collection. This includes new information requests for disaggregated information about adult and pediatric patients, to name a few of the changes. The reporting requirements do contain patient flows, but there are still unknown aspects to the new COVID-19 reporting requirements regarding individual-level data and certain privacy considerations.

May 19, 2020 WPF Statement regarding HHS Secretary's Section 1135 COVID-19 HIPAA Waiver

This statement discusses a 72-hour "statutory waiver" of 5 basic HIPAA rights (including the right to confidential communications). The waiver is triggered by the Secretary of HHS and applies for a 72-hour period beginning upon implementation of a hospital disaster protocol. This statement discusses this waiver, what it is, what is means, who is impacted, and our recommendations.