Joint civil society statement: States use of digital surveillance technologies to fight pandemic must respect human rights 2 April 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global public health emergency that requires a coordinated and large-scale response by governments worldwide. However, States’ efforts to contain the virus must not be used as a cover to usher in a new era of greatly expanded systems of invasive digital surveillance.

Google’s (i.e., Alphabet, Inc.) proposed acquisition of Fitbit, a leading health wearable device company, is just one more piece illustrating how the company is actively engaged in shaping the future of public health.

Contact:

Jeff Chester, CDD (jeff@democraticmedia.org; 202-494-7100)

David Monahan, CCFC (david@commercialfreechildhood.org; 617-896-9397)

Groups Praise Sen. Markey and Google

for Ensuring Children on YouTube Receive Key Safeguards

Big Tech companies are lobbying to undermine the only federal online privacy law in the US – one which protects children--and we need your help to stop them. Along with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), we ask for your help to urge the Federal Trade Commission to strengthen—not weaken—the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Please sign this petition because your voice is essential to a future where children’s privacy is protected from marketers and others.

I played a key role helping get the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) passed by Congress in 1998 (when I was executive director of the Center for Media Education). Since then, I have tried to ensure that the country’s only federal law addressing commercial privacy online was taken seriously.

Proposed Consent Order Penalties and Conditions

The FTC should seek a 20-year consent decree which includes the following forms of relief:

Injunctive relief

The Center for Digital Democracy provides the following recommendations for comprehensive baseline Federal privacy legislation. We are building on our expertise addressing digital marketplace developments for more than two decades, including work leading to the enactment of the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act--the only federal online privacy law in the United States. Our recommendations are also informed by our long-standing trans-Atlantic work with consumer and privacy advocates in Europe, as well as the General Data Protection Regulation.

Internet service provider (ISP) giants, which dominant how Americans gain access to broadband Internet, cable TV, streaming video, and other telecommunications services, are aggressively expanding their capabilities to gather and use personal data. Leading ISPs AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are taking full advantage of all information flowing from PC’s, mobile phones, set-top boxes, and other devices.

Computational politics—the application of digital targeted-marketing technologies to election campaigns in the US and elsewhere—are now raising the same concerns for democratic discourse and governance that they have long raised for consumer privacy and welfare in the commercial marketplace. This paper examines the digital strategies and technologies of today’s political operations, explaining how they were employed during the most recent US election cycle, and exploring the implications of their continued use in the civic context.

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