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Two Industry Trade Groups Issue Proposals for Data Privacy

As Congress considers how to regulate technology companies’ handling of personal data, the Internet Association, whose members include Google and Facebook, and BSA/The Software Alliance, which represents Microsoft and Oracle, issued their own proposals. Among the six principles that the Internet Association endorsed is data portability, which allows consumers to take their personal information from one service to another that provides a similar service. BSA/The Software Alliance issued a 10-point framework.

BSA/The Software Alliance (formerly known as the Business Software Alliance) offered proposals such as the “affirmative express consent” from consumers for use of sensitive data, which “parallels some of Europe’s new privacy rules” and goes beyond California’s new privacy law’s “opt out” power for consumers. “Now is the time to modernize the law,” said BSA president Victoria Espinel.

On September 26, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will hold a hearing on “the privacy policies of top technology companies,” at which representatives from Apple, Amazon, AT&T, Google, and Twitter are scheduled to testify.

One day earlier, Republican state attorneys general will brief Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is considering an investigation of social media companies.

See the full story here: www.etcentric.org