Homeland Security Department names privacy officer

IDG News Service - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has appointed former DoubleClick Inc. executive Nuala O'Connor Kelly as its new privacy officer, in charge of making sure that the technologies used by the department don't erode citizens' privacy.
The appointment was announced yesterday by Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, following some speculation by privacy advocates about when the required post would be filled.
The Homeland Security Department was created last year in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has been armed with a wide variety of technologies aimed at detecting and preventing terrorist activities.
According to Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, the appointment of a privacy officer is required by law, and some privacy advocates were concerned that the post hadn't yet been filled.
The new department has already taken on initiatives seen as privacy threats by civil libertarians, such as passenger profiling and electronic surveillance programs.
O'Connor Kelly previously held the post of privacy officer at the U.S. Department of Commerce and was vice president of data protection and chief privacy officer at online marketing company DoubleClick.
Rotenberg said that his group believes O'Connor Kelly's first steps should be to address an expanded passenger-profiling proposal, dubbed CAPPS II; ensure that the expanded electronic surveillance provisions in the Homeland Security Act have a sunset clause; and closely examine whether commercial sector databases should be accessible to the federal government.

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