Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, PRIVACY NEWS: FTC to hold consumer privacy seminars in spring, (Dec 3, 2013)

By Tobias J. Gillett, J.D., LL.M.

The FTC will hold separate seminars on the privacy implications of mobile device tracking, alternative scoring products, and consumer generated and controlled health data this spring, the agency announced yesterday. The seminars will examine businesses’ use, often without consumers’ knowledge, of data tools to track, market to, and analyze consumers in the different contexts, and will discuss the benefits and privacy risks presented.

The FTC will hold its Mobile Device Tracking seminar at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, February 19, 2014, in the FTC Conference Center, 601 New Jersey Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. The seminar will discuss privacy concerns raised by the use of technologies that identify mobile device signals by retailers and other businesses to track consumers’ movements through retail stores and other locations.

The agency’s Alternative Scoring Products seminar will be held on Wednesday, March 19, 2014, also in the FTC Conference Center. The seminar will address predictive scores offered by data brokers for a variety of purposes, such as identity verification, fraud prevention, credit risk, debt collection, and marketing and advertising.

The FTC’s Consumer Generated and Controlled Health Data seminar will be held on a date and in a location to be determined. The seminar will discuss consumers’ increasing management and generation of their own health data; their use of personal health records, apps, and health and fitness devices that collect information about them and transmit it to other entities; and the potential privacy implications of the movement of health data outside the traditional medical provider context.

The two-hour seminars will be free and open to the public, and will feature perspectives from academics, business and industry representatives, and consumer advocates. The FTC invites public comment on the proposed topics, and will issue staff reports following the seminars.

News: ConsumerProtection Privacy FederalTradeCommissionNews