Congressman introduces online, off-line privacy bill

IDG News Service - By Cara Garretson, IDG News Service
WASHINGTON -- A new privacy bill introduced yesterday by a U.S. congressman aims to protect the privacy of consumers without crippling businesses' abilities to collect information.
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who is chairman of the House subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, introduced the Consumer Privacy Protection Act of 2002 with 21 co-sponsors, according to a statement from the congressman's office.
"After holding a series of six hearings, the most comprehensive inquiry in Congress on information privacy, I am pleased to introduce this information privacy legislation with strong bipartisan support," Stearns said.
Stearns' measure is designed to protect consumers' "personally identifiable information," regardless of whether it is collected online, over the phone, through the mail or in another manner. It states that except for government agencies, small businesses and nonprofit groups, any organization that collects, sells or uses a consumer's personal information for purposes other than executing a transaction with the consumer must inform the individual of that fact.
Organizations would also be responsible for informing the consumer of his privacy rights under the law, the statement said. Such organizations would also have to give consumers access to their policy statements.
Consumers would have the right to prevent an organization from selling or disclosing personal information to others not identified as information-sharing partners of that organization, according to the bill.
The bill proposes to augment the consumer protection measures found in existing federal regulations that dictate how individuals' financial and medical information must be handled.
One industry group believes that the bill is a step in the right direction but said that it may not go far enough to protect consumers from privacy breaches of their sensitive information.
"This bill shows [its supporters] put a lot of effort into addressing some of the issues in a serious way," said Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet civil liberties public interest group in Washington. "But the bill could be taking a step back on sensitive information issues," which is what most consumers are concerned with protecting, Schwartz said.