The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation held a hearing today "Enlisting Big Data in the Fight Against Coronavirus" that was a “paper hearing” without video but instead of a bunch of submitted testimonies & questions @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2020/4/enlisting-big-data-in-the-fight-against-coronavirus Thread …

The App Association gave testimony that included calls for using privacy preserving technologies to fight COVID, urging some restraint from government, and calling on the federal government to enact a national privacy framework @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/16592ABE-C5B8-4968-9AE2-6A148636B5C4

The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) provided testimony calling for federal privacy legislation + gave definitions of types of data — imo their “Device Identified Information” definition as safe is obviously doesn’t align to technical realities... https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/3AE22675-7424-4CCD-859A-DDBBD3CAA082

NAI also explained their policy advising member companies that they can take Precise Location Information, Sexuality, Sensitive Health-Related Data, Sensor Data & share it w/ partners/gov without notifying consumers IF the user’s identity is "pseydonymized" *without* consent..

The NAI also is encouraging and applauding it’s members by making it clear that the NAI Code “does not prohibit the user of data collected for advertising purposes to be shared to used for public health purposes..” // This is a big green light from NAI urging location sharing:

NAI also made it clear they are backers of the “Privacy for America” coalition pushing one of the worst privacy frameworks — and how they treat healthcare data should be a strong indicator of how serious they are about privacy....
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/3AE22675-7424-4CCD-859A-DDBBD3CAA082

The Future of Privacy Forum gave testimony as well and encouraged some commonsense sharing strategies that focused on privacy enhancing technologies, data minimization and transparency/consent: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/F24D0AF8-D939-4D14-A963-372B9357DD7E

FPF also provided a helpful list of the types of organizations that have location data, which should be analyzed for privacy violations or potential opportunities for supporting public health // & FPF also called for a federal privacy law and covered some important aspects:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) provided testimony and made an eyebrow raising note that they represent “over 650” companies, when they were saying they represented 750 companies in December 2019 ( https://www.iab.com/news/patrick-dolan-announces-departure/) …
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/97962BF5-D0A7-41F4-937D-72D8CD06623E

The IAB also released some sobering numbers from a poll of their members and marketers showing nearly 100 buy-side marketers were totally pausing Q1-Q2 spend, with numerous others dropping spend or planning to.

The IAB also praised their members companies who are using location data to track the spread of COVID and praised the efforts written about in the New York Times that tracked people and mobile density in grocery stores and parks:

The IAB also endorsed the “Privacy for America” framework, & made the shameful but unsurprising decision to tie the POA proposal written years ago by ISP lobbyists to our current health crisis - by claiming that the proposal would help “minimize the spread of COVID-19”

The Center for Democracy & Technology also provided testimony that spoke about the importance of protecting user privacy, while flagging some potential areas for abuse:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/2E721648-C400-4DB8-8A73-52959B4E0D6D

CDT also flagged concerns with how many non-HIPAA-covered entities are regularly “Collecting, using and sharing consumer health information” @

CDT also made extremely important points about de-anonymizing location data and the risks that come from broadly sharing this data, and explained how China, South Korea & Israel were using mobile apps in dystopic ways *right now*:

CDT ended their testimony with some solid recommendations for how corporations could respect privacy and other parts of any framework that will provide transparency and empower individuals: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/2E721648-C400-4DB8-8A73-52959B4E0D6D

A health org called Kinsa testified, who own http://healthweather.us , which uses data from 1 million smart thermometers to track fevers and the spread of illnesses. They largely talk about their tech as an “early warning system” ..they obvi want fed $$ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/063C2D34-0021-460A-847F-D9B21A2277B9

Ranking Member Maria Cantwell gave a strong opening statement in favor of privacy-enhancing solutions and laid out several minimum standards that any framework should meet: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/DD784865-C594-4137-8F5F-219F05C97BF9

The Q&A is broken up by speaker, it’s horrible to parse, links are:

IAB Answers @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/389ABE57-25AE-45B3-B22A-14F2CAC798A2

CDT @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/503ADE96-F8CF-4CB3-98E8-954CE5B6D464

NAI @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/823AAFB9-03AE-4379-B627-EE3ED38C2321

App Association @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/26FEA0E6-DBD9-47D5-A3AE-D6710E0D0176

Future of Privacy Forum @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/1C6B91C2-1E46-47CE-B1AB-7441555C6F23
...

Q&A final two:
Kinsa @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/364ED5E7-72F5-47AB-8224-639EA01294B1

Ryan Calo, Law Professor U of W @ https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/DCD01823-EA15-4BEF-83AB-AD11B507652F

// end of thread, thanks for digging into these documents and flagging anything else of interest or importance!