Karl Herchenroeder

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is about “midway” through developing recommendations for Congress on U.S. surveillance programs, Chairman Adam Klein told us Friday. NSA is reportedly considering letting the controversial Section 215 phone surveillance program expire (see 1905060048) in December when the USA Freedom Act sunsets.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is unlikely to give privacy legislation floor time this year because it's not a high enough priority on a dwindling 2019 legislative calendar, lobbyists said. With about 90 days left this session, the Senate Commerce Committee privacy working group hasn't released a draft bill. One communications industry lobbyist said McConnell’s office signaled floor time is doubtful. A tech lobbyist agreed, given McConnell's priorities this year, his standard operating procedure and time left. A privacy bill is highly unlikely to pass under unanimous consent, the tech lobbyist said, given the likelihood for amendments from members with outstanding items. “Absent a major event that would put pressure on Congress, I think we are looking at early next year as the best case scenario for enactment of a privacy bill,” another tech lobbyist said. “And each day that goes by makes that timeline less and less realistic.” Offices for the six privacy group members and McConnell didn’t comment Thursday. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, expects a data privacy bill to be released this year.

The 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack might have been a premature attempt by North Korea to exploit an underdeveloped cyber tool, said FBI Cyber Division Deputy Assistant Director Tonya Ugoretz Wednesday. There was financial motivation, but the ransomware didn’t allow attackers to collect any ransom, she said at an Aspen Institute event.

The FTC should add at least 500 new privacy staffers so agency enforcement can keep pace with the digital economy, Intel Global Privacy Officer David Hoffman blogged Monday. Intel released its latest iteration of a federal comprehensive privacy bill, declaring a “privacy crisis.” The Consumer Protection Bureau’s Division of Privacy and Identity Protection has about 50 full-time employees. About 500 employees are within Consumer Protection overall and about 600 within Competition.

Kathy Castor is taking the lead on children’s privacy issues for House Democrats crafting comprehensive privacy legislation, House Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., told us Thursday. Schakowsky hosted a “very substantive meeting” Wednesday with Democratic subcommittee members to discuss potential bill elements. Various members want to “take responsibility” on specific issues, Schakowsky said, like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act with Castor. The Florida Democrat told us she wants to weigh in “very substantially” on the privacy bill but didn’t elaborate. Schakowsky said she will be “stepping up” meetings with Republicans on privacy soon. She said members left the subcommittee discussion “feeling like it’s beginning to gel.”

The FTC defended the backgrounds of top agency officials Thursday after Public Citizen argued the agency’s cozy relationship with industry is creating a timid enforcement culture. At least 75 percent of the officials whose backgrounds it studied represented corporate clients before joining or after leaving the agency, or both, Public Citizen reported Thursday. The group looked at 41 FTC commissioners and directors of the Competition and Consumer Protection bureaus spanning the past 20 years. It said more than 60 percent worked on behalf of the tech industry at some point for clients like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Uber and Intel.

Governments around the world should promote public-private investment in research and development to spur innovative and safe application of artificial intelligence technology, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Wednesday. OECD’s 36 members, including the U.S., and six other countries signed a set of AI principles at its annual Ministerial Council Meeting in Paris.

There’s bipartisan agreement among members of the House Oversight Committee to halt federal law enforcement and government use of facial recognition technology until civil liberty concerns are addressed. Chairman Elijah Cummings, R-Md., ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and various members of both parties signaled support for a moratorium at Wednesday’s hearing.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham is “agnostic” about whether a new agency should replace the FTC as primary privacy enforcer, the South Carolina Republican told reporters Tuesday. “I’m agnostic until you prove to me that they’re not the right agency,” he said when asked about consumer groups’ call for a new agency.

The White House soliciting evidence of anti-conservative bias by tech platforms (see 1905160059) is a “good thing,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said last week. Asked about concerns over the administration's requesting information like citizenship status, Hawley told reporters it doesn’t seem much different from congressional offices collecting information for voluntary complaints. “It sends a signal to tech companies that [the White House is] paying attention, and it’s a good thing to be paying attention to.”