Constitution Center
400 7th St SW
Washington
DC
20024
Event Description
Information about consumers has become a key input to innovative products and services. However consumers may suffer injury when information about them is misused. The Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission hosted a workshop on December 12, 2017, to examine consumer injury in the context of privacy and data security. The workshop featured opening remarks by Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen and brought together a variety of stakeholders, including industry representatives, consumer advocates, academics, and government researchers, to discuss various issues related to the injuries consumers suffer when information about them is misused.
Panelists discussed questions such as how to best characterize these injuries, how to accurately measure such injuries and their prevalence, and what factors businesses and consumers consider when evaluating the tradeoffs between providing information and potentially increasing their exposure to injuries.
The FTC invites comments from the public on the topics covered in the workshop. Topics of interest include the following:
- What are the qualitatively different types of injuries from privacy and data security incidents? What are some real life examples of these types of informational injury to consumers and to businesses?
- What frameworks might we use to assess these different injuries? How do we quantify injuries? How might frameworks treat past, current, and potential future outcomes in quantifying injury? How might frameworks differ for different types of injury?
- How do businesses evaluate the benefits, costs, and risks of collecting and using information in light of potential injuries? How do they make tradeoffs? How do they assess the risks of different kinds of data breach? What market and legal incentives do they face, and how do these incentives affect their decisions?
- How do consumers perceive and evaluate the benefits, costs, and risks of sharing information in light of potential injuries? What obstacles do they face in conducting such an evaluation? How do they evaluate tradeoffs?
You can find a full list of questions and information about how to submit comments in the detailed public notice about the workshop. The deadline for submitting comments is January 26, 2018.
The workshop, which was free and open to the public, was held at the FTC’s Constitution Center, 400 7th St., SW, Washington, DC.
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8:30 am
Registration
9:15 am
Introductory Remarks
Cora Han
Attorney, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity ProtectionOpening Remarks
Maureen Ohlhausen
Acting Chairman, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission9:30 am
Panel 1: Injuries 101
This panel will survey a broad array of negative outcomes that arise from the unauthorized access to or misuse of consumers’ personal information. Discussion topics will include financial and medical identity theft, fraud, health and safety concerns, time and effort expenses, and other types of consumer impacts.
Moderators:
- Jacqueline Connor
Attorney, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection - Daniel Wood
Economist, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Division of Consumer Protection
Panelists:
- Pamela Dixon
Executive Director, World Privacy Forum - Damon McCoy
Assistant Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, New York University Tandon School of Engineering - Lauren Smith
Policy Counsel, Future of Privacy Forum - Cindy Southworth
Executive Vice President, National Network to End Domestic Violence - Heather Wydra
Supervising Attorney, Whitman-Walker Health
10:45 am
Break
11:15 am
Panel 2: Potential Factors in Assessing Injury
This panel will examine the potential factors in assessing consumer injury, including type of injury, magnitude of injury, and sensitivity of consumer data. Discussion topics will also include whether the same factors are important in both the privacy and data security contexts, the risk of injury versus realized injury, and when government intervention is warranted.
Moderators:
- Neil Chilson
Acting Chief Technologist, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission - Maneesha Mithal
Associate Director, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection
Panelists:
- Alessandro Acquisti
Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College - James C. Cooper
Associate Professor of Law and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University - Michelle De Mooy
Director, Privacy & Data Project, Center for Democracy & Technology - Geoffrey Manne
Executive Director, International Center for Law & Economics - Paul Ohm
Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
12:45 pm
Lunch
1:45 pm
Panel 3: Business and Consumer Perspectives
This panel will examine how businesses and consumers perceive and evaluate the benefits, costs, and risks of collecting and sharing information in light of potential benefits and injuries. Discussion topics will include the considerations businesses take into account when choosing privacy and data security practices, and how consumers make decisions about sharing information.
Moderators:
- Cora Han
Attorney, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection - Daniel Wood
Economist, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Division of Consumer Protection
Panelists:
- Omri Ben-Shahar
Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School - Leigh Freund
President & CEO, Network Advertising Initiative - Jennifer Glasgow
Privacy Expert - Bob Gourley
Partner, Cognitio - Katie McInnis
Policy Counsel, Consumers Union
3:10 pm
Break
3:30 pm
Panel 4: Measuring Injury
This panel will examine different methods for and challenges in assessing and quantifying informational injury. Discussion topics will include how to quantify injury, including risk of injury, for data breaches and privacy violations, and how consumers’ choices and reported preferences can be accounted for in such measurements.
Moderators:
- Jacqueline Connor
Attorney, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection - Doug Smith
Economist, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Division of Consumer Protection
Panelists:
- Garrett Glasgow
Senior Consultant, NERA Economic Consulting - Ginger Jin
Professor of Economics, University of Maryland - Lynn Langton
Chief, Victimization Statistics. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice - Catherine Tucker
Professor of Management and Professor of Marketing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management - Josephine Wolff
Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Rochester Institute of Technology
4:45 pm
Closing Remarks
Andrew Stivers
Deputy Director for Consumer Protection, Â鶹´«Ã½ Trade Commission, Bureau of EconomicsFileAgenda (166.96 KB) - Jacqueline Connor
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Event Materials
FileInformational Injury Workshop Slides (1.64 MB)
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Transcript - Files
FileTranscript with Word Index (8.05 MB)
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Videos
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Location