White House restrictions on data collection imperil innovation economy
In a late Friday news dump, the Obama administration released a dubious plan to create a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.” This proposal would enact a slew of bureaucratic regulations on how consumer data can be collected and retained, including “privacy review boards“ run by the Federal Trade Commission and a directive to conduct “disparate impact” analysis on how data-intensive businesses operate.
While it may have been well-intentioned, the White House’s plan would create an unnecessarily burdensome regulatory regime that would raise costs for consumers in a variety of ways. These include new regulatory compliance costs, restricting the business model of subsidized services (like Facebook or Gmail) and imposing civil fines up to $25,000,000 on businesses.
The Mercatus Center’s Adam Thierer gives a great summary in a post at Tech Liberation Front:
America’s Internet sector came to be the envy of the world because our more flexible, light-touch regulatory regime leaves more breathing room for competition and innovation compared to Europe’s top-down regime. We should not abandon that approach now…the Obama [administration’s] proposal deals exclusively with private sector data collection and has nothing to say about government surveillance activities. The [administration] would be wise to channel its energies into that far more significant privacy problem first.
Indeed. Instead of meddling with one of the most innovative and prosperous sectors of the economy, perhaps the administration should set its own house in order first by addressing out-of-control government surveillance.
