Clinton Adviser: Internet, Regulate Thyself
(02/18/98; 6:38 p.m. EST)
By John Borland, Net Insider
A senior technology adviser renewed the Clinton
administration's call for self-regulation in online
industries and said the federal government was
ill-equipped to keep up with changes online at the
Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Austin,
Texas, on Wednesday.
Brian Kahin, senior policy analyst in the White House
Office of Science and Technology, said the government
is
betting on industry self-regulation in e-commerce and
consumer privacy, but needs to see some proposals
soon.
"If the private sector would come to some agreement,
that would transcend national boundaries, and we'd all
be
a lot better off," Kahin said in his keynote at the
conference, which is hosted and attended by online
privacy and security advocates.
Since late 1996, Clinton and his technology advisers
have
pressed industry leaders to come up with their own
proposals to regulate Net commerce transactions and
protect the privacy of online consumers. While the
private
sector has largely welcomed this hands-off approach,
business leaders are still far from reaching any kind
of
consensus on the issue. A group of senior
administration
officials warned late last month that industry leaders
needed to establish some momentum before midsummer
or risk Congress taking control of the issue.
But Kahin said the administration was still fairly
confident
an industry solution would emerge. "We have more
confidence that self-regulation can work in the
privacy
sphere," he said. "There are strong incentives for
self-regulation."
In addition to the threat of U.S. government action,
he
cited the European Union's strict new privacy
guidelines,
which are scheduled to take effect in October. These
laws would bar exporting an individual's data --
perhaps
even personnel information between branches of a
single
multinational company -- out of Europe to a country
without "adequate" privacy protections.
Since the U.S. does not have strict laws governing
private
use of individual information, corporations that do
business on both sides of the Atlantic could put
themselves at risk if they don't create their own
standards. "Europe could cut off the data flow to the
U.S.," warned Peter Swire, an Ohio State University
law
professor who is writing a book on the European
regulations. Swire spoke on a pre-conference panel
Wednesday.
To avoid disruptions in business, U.S. companies need
to
come up with privacy standards this year, Kahin said.
"If
self-regulation doesn't work, we may be in for a
serious
international problem," he said.
Kahin said government needed to maintain an oversight
role, to keep business focused on policy questions.
"There
are limits to self-regulation," he said. "Businesses
will
look at their business needs first. They'll focus on
the
strategic environment and not the policy environment."
But the speed of technological and commercial change
on
the Net makes it difficult for policy makers and
regulators
to retain their traditional hands-on approach, he
noted.
"In this kind of space, policy-making might just be
too
hard," he said. "Following it is too fast for the
usual
government processes, let alone trying to anticipate
where it's going."