GOP Senators, Ex-FTC Members Talk Privacy as Attention on Issue Grows
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., met Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and former FTC members Wednesday about online privacy, the lawmakers told us Thursday. “My goal is to listen and see what we can do to make sure companies have skin in the game,” Scott told us. The ex-FTC officials talked about preventing future privacy breaches, he said.
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Staffers for other lawmakers joined the discussion, Wicker told us. He called the meeting “quite interesting.”
Former FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, former Commissioner Julie Brill and former acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen attended, a Senate staffer confirmed. Leibowitz now co-chairs the ISP-backed 21st Century Privacy Coalition, Brill is Microsoft corporate vice president, and Ohlhausen a Baker Botts attorney. None of them commented.
Meanwhile, Ron Wyden, Ore., led a group of 15 Senate Democrats Thursday in asking the FCC and the FTC to investigate wireless carriers’ practice of sharing user location tracking data with third parties (see 1901180034). “These wireless carriers have failed to regulate themselves or police the practices of its business partners, and, in failing to do so, have needlessly exposed American consumers to serious harm,” they wrote. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York, joined Ed Markey, Massachusetts; Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut; Kamala Harris, California; Patrick Leahy, Vermont; Jeff Merkley, Oregon; Ben Cardin, Maryland; Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island; Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, Minnesota; Kirsten Gillibrand, New York; Cory Booker, New Jersey; Jack Reed, Rhode Island; and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. The agencies didn’t comment.
The wireless carriers promised not to distribute customer location data, which is “a national security and personal safety nightmare,” Wyden told reporters. Wyden said his privacy legislation (see 1811010044) makes it “clear that we’re not going to accept their word.” Carriers promised changes in 2018, and they’re making the “same kind of promises” in 2019, he said. “They get caught, they apologize and they say they won’t do it again. It’s kind of wash, rinse and repeat.”
AT&T referred to a previous statement about winding down location tracking arrangements. The other carriers didn’t comment.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, is continuing discussions with the Commerce Committee’s informal privacy working group, which includes Wicker, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Blumenthal, Schatz told us. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who’s preparing his own privacy bill, and Wyden are also in the mix, Schatz said.
There are concerns about state privacy laws “going in 50 different directions,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters, saying, he hopes that forces Congress to act. He said a lot of Republicans “are interested in a national standard and in pre-emption, but there are also Republican concerns about too much heavy regulation, which is of course what the Dems want through the FTC.” Republican and Democratic proposals, he said, will have to be “fused together in what I hope will be a bipartisan compromise that puts in place a national data privacy standard that everybody can live with.”