Author(s): Deirdre K. Mulligan
Year: 2013
Abstract:
The
recent White Paper on privacy from the U.S. Department of Commerce
encourages, “the development of voluntary, enforceable privacy codes of
conduct in specific industries through the collaborative efforts of
multi-stakeholder groups, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and a
Privacy Policy Office within the Department of Commerce”. The policy
envisages a coordination of multi-stakeholder groups through a new
Privacy Policy Office which would work with the FTC, “to develop
voluntary but enforceable codes of conduct. Compliance with such a code
would serve as a safe harbor for companies facing certain complaints
about their privacy practices”.
Privacy codes of practice have
extensive histories in a number of countries outside the United States.
At various times, they have been adopted to anticipate privacy
legislation, to supplement privacy legislation, to preempt privacy
legislation, and to implement privacy legislation. This paper draws upon
international experiences and interviews with chief privacy officers to
offer important lessons for American policymakers about how codes of
practice might best encourage privacy protection on the ground.
Despite
obvious differences, the Canadian policy experience may be especially
instructive. Private sector regulation was originally based on a
bottom-up approach through which legislation, called the Personal
Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act of 2000, was based
on a voluntarily negotiated standard through the Canadian Standards
Association (CSA). This in turn was based on existing sectoral codes of
practice, of the kind envisaged by the U.S. Department of Commerce. What
has been the experience over the last decade? What useful lessons can
be drawn for U.S. policy? What are the economic, technological, legal,
and social conditions under which codes of practice might promote better
privacy protection?
Keywords: privacy, codes of conduct, internet governance
Link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2230369