New Report Exposes Flaws in Obama Administration’s “Multistakeholder” Effort to Establish Privacy Safeguards: White House Must Act Now to Fulfill its Vision for a “Privacy Bill of Rights”

A report released by the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) criticizes the Obama Administration’s recent effort to establish new privacy safeguards for the Digital Era.

The more than yearlong proceeding led by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to further the Administration’s proposed “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” failed to ensure that the public can be protected from the array of sophisticated mobile “app” data-gathering practices. The detailed, 34-page report, “Head in the Digital Sand,” argues that the lobbyist-dominated process failed to examine the actual operations of the mobile app industry and its impact on the ability of consumers to protect their privacy effectively.

Among the most disturbing revelations is the growing use of real-time tracking and surveillance of individual mobile app users. Industry practices requiring investigation by the Federal Trade Commission are identified, including apps that stealthily eavesdrop on consumers to ensure they spend more on virtual goods and other services—moving them up, in industry parlance, from “minnows” to “dolphins” and then to big cash-generating “whales.” The report examines other mobile and app-related data collection practices, including the ways users are being tracked from device to device; how app developers “acquire” and target users; the role of so-called “ad exchanges” that auction off mobile consumers to advertisers in milliseconds, through the use of data-rich profiles; so-called “monetization” practices relied on by developers; and industry research on the unique personal relationship users have with mobile devices and content.