International Association of Privacy Professionals Leadership Award
Acceptance Remarks
March 7, 2013
Washington, DC
Director, Decentralized Information Group
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
What an extraordinary honor to be here and receive the International Association of Privacy Professionals Privacy Leadership Award. My thanks to my longtime friend, colleague and inspiration, Scott Taylor, Vice Chair of the IAPP Board. To Brendon Lynch, Chairman and all of the members of the IAPP Board, Trevor Hughes and the outstanding (and growing!) IAPP staff, you have my sincere appreciation and admiration.
It’s a particular honor to be before you, the membership of the IAPP: as privacy professionals in the commercial sector and the government, in the United States and all around the world, you are the living force that helps us to make progress on privacy day by day, and app by app.
I appreciate being recognized for my work on the Obama Administration’s Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. This is, as with all important things, a collaborative effort with people inside the government and out. But more than anything, what we did was possible because it gave voice to the work that all of you do on a daily basis.
Your work has inspired us and helped us to
offer a revitalized set of Fair Information Practice Principles for the
Information Age. In fact, to let you in on a little secret that probably
won’t surprise you: the first draft of the seven principles at the heart
of the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights was developed by a small,
inter-agency working group made up primarily of privacy officers from
departments and agencies across the Federal government. These were
privacy practitioners, not policy wonks like me.
Two of these principles present critical challenges for us today.
The first principle in the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights is ‘Individual Control’. We lead with this principle because we believe more than anything else that people must have the freedom to control how information about themselves is used.
Closely connected is the principle of Respect for Context.’ We want to encourage the free flow of personal information and the development of innovative new services that can advance human knowledge, economic growth, and political engagement. But we know that if citizens find themselves surprised by personal information taken out of context and used against them, then they will lose trust in the online environment. They will be fearful, feel less free and engage less. Because we want to increase freedom in the information age, we must all work together by advancing best practices, by ensuring that bad behavior is held to account, and by supporting targeted legislation to assure that these principles guide the development of our rapidly growing information society.
Writing more than forty-five years ago, the late and much-missed Professor Alan Westin taught us this essential connection between privacy and freedom. Following his lead, we can now see how important these issues are in the 21st century and it is fair to say that the whole world in watching. The work that you do affects not only the 2 Billion people online today but also the 70% of the world’s population still waiting to join the Information Age.
I’d like to close with the words that President Obama used to introduce the Consumer Privacy BIll of Rights. He said:
“Justice Brandeis taught us that privacy is the “right to be let alone,” but we also know that privacy is about much more than just solitude or secrecy. Citizens who feel protected from misuse of their personal information feel free to engage in commerce, to participate in the political process, or to seek needed health care.
He went on: “One thing should be clear, even though we live in a world in which we share personal information more freely than in the past, we must reject the conclusion that privacy is an outmoded value. It has been at the heart of our democracy from its inception, and we need it now more than ever.”
It is in this spirit that I accept this award and pledge to continue to work with all of you in service of these goals.