Expect Senate Commerce to Scrutinize Government’s COVID-19 Data Use
Expect the Senate Commerce Committee to scrutinize industry and government data sharing as the two sides collaborate on COVID-19 response, various groups said in advance of Thursday’s paper hearing (see 2004030076). Democrats will want to know what data is shared with government and how people are being tracked, Interactive Advertising Bureau Executive Vice President-Public Policy Dave Grimaldi told us Wednesday. He will testify and expects Republicans to explore public safety, economic and consumer benefits.
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Other witnesses are University of Washington law professor Ryan Calo, ACT|The App Association Senior Director-Public Policy Graham Dufault, Network Advertising Initiative CEO Leigh Freund, Future of Privacy Forum Senior Counsel Stacey Gray and Kinsa Smart Thermometers CEO Inder Singh. They were added after the initial hearing announcement. Like Grimaldi, Center for Democracy and Technology Privacy and Data Project Director Michelle Richardson was on the witness list from the start.
Witnesses declined to provide advanced testimony for the unconventional, remote hearing. The committee will post opening statements and testimony at 10 a.m. Thursday. Witnesses will have 96 business hours to answer member questions.
CDT plans to highlight big data uses for COVID-19 response. It will raise examples of how consumer data is repurposed to represent health metrics and target consumers, while discussing privacy risks of tracking location and proximity, a spokesperson said.
Congress needs to act to protect pandemic-related data but also act in the long term to protect Americans from unmitigated surveillance, said Public Citizen Digital Rights Advocate Emily Peterson-Cassin in an interview. There’s potential for leveraging data to make this pandemic shorter, but there need to be guardrails, she said.
The American Civil Liberties Union took a similar stance Wednesday. Lawmakers shouldn’t write off tools that could be useful in fighting the pandemic, but data tools need to be properly constrained, said Surveillance and Cybersecurity Counsel Jennifer Granick to reporters. Cellphone, GPS and Wi-Fi data aren’t pinpoint accurate, added Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley. Even if they were, the technology doesn’t account for walls or plexiglass for instance, he said.
COVID-19 has provided examples of helpful data use, said BSA|The Software Alliance Policy Director Kate Goodloe, citing the benefit of location tracking for researchers. The crisis highlighted the need for a federal baseline of privacy requirements for data handling, she said.
By monitoring populations, governments worldwide including South Korea are gaining insights into the spread of the disease, said NCC Group Chief Technical Officer Ollie Whitehouse. It’s not necessary to identify individuals. There should be careful consideration about what data is collected and stored, he said.
People deserve basic protections about what data is collected, said Peterson-Cassin, noting the lack of a federal privacy law. This emergency showed how much tech can help consumers but also how much it can hurt them, she said.
IAB supports a legislative framework from industry coalition Privacy for America. The framework supports a new FTC data protection bureau, commission rulemaking in “certain key areas” and civil penalty authority to the agency and state attorneys general.