Warehousing Consumers' Online Travels To Catch Child Predators and Terrorists: Privacy Implications?
October 5, 2006
Overview | Panelist Biographies | One-Pagers | Video/Audio | Photos
Expected legislation in Congress would require Web sites and Internet service providers to retain the records of their customers' online activities for a period of time -- often referred to as "data retention." Law enforcement officials, including the Department of Justice and most state attorneys general, are proponents of such data warehousing to aid in law enforcement attempts to apprehend terrorists and child predators. Many privacy advocates oppose legislation because of the potential risks associated with unauthorized persons gaining easy access to logs of consumers' personal information or potential for misuse of information by the government. This panel explored the privacy and security implications of a legislative mandate to retain logs of consumers' online travels in central databases.
Panelists included: Jim Halpert, DLA Piper, David Sobel, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Jim Harper, The Cato Institute, and Tim Lordan (moderator), Internet Caucus Advisory Committee.
This event was part of a three part panel series titled Legislating Online Child Safety. This briefing series was hosted by the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee on legislative proposals to protect children while online. Policymakers put forward several proposals to mandate online safety and security for children and teens. This three-part panel discussion series unpacked the major legislative proposals and examined them in depth.
If you missed parts of the series, video and audio are now available for part one, Content Ratings for the Web?, and part two, Social Networking and Chat Sites: Teen-Free Zones?.
For this series, members submitted one pagers on their perspectives with respect online child safety. This briefing book is available at http://www.netcaucus.org/books/childsafety2006/.