Online privacy

This report features global insights and perspectives across five issues: Privacy and security, Openness, Digital inclusion, Web literacy and Decentralization. How healthy is the Internet? In most cases it’s not a simple question. Certainly, there are some straightforward indicators to watch. Things are getting a bit better in areas like: access, affordability, and encryption. And they are getting worse in: censorship, online harassment, and energy use. Simple indicators miss the complexity that comes with global ecosystems like the Internet.

As Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, defends his company's data practices this week before Congress, one of the nation's largest cable companies is asking federal lawmakers for a bill that would rein in social media platforms, search engines and other tech giants that have access to their users' personal data.

As Mark Zuckerberg appears before Congress, a look at what lawmakers can and can’t do about Facebook.

Sens Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), have introduced the Privacy Bill of Rights bill, the Customer Online Notification for Stopping Edge-provider Network Transgressions (CONSENT) Act, which would require edge providers to obtain opt-in consent to use, share or sell users' personal info. It would not extend opt-in to data collection, but would require edge providers to notify users of such collection. The bill would require the Federal Trade Commission to establish online protections for "customers" of online edge providers, including Facebook and Google.

What will happen after Zuckerberg’s testimony?

Facebook has said that political data firm Cambridge Analytica improperly harvested the public profile data of up to 87 million of its users, including their political beliefs, interests and friends’ information. Now the company has revealed that the extent of the harvesting went even further — it included people’s private messages, too.

[Commentary] Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance in Washington is a voluntary, one-off reaction to a scandal. It should be the start of the conversation, not the end: Facebook, like every company that collects and stores personal data, must be made permanently accountable to American political and regulatory institutions. Electronic media, social media and other innovations have created new challenges for law enforcement and national security; they have also helped to increase polarization and undermine trust in public institutions, in America and everywhere else.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) said he would tend not to regulate Facebook and other edge providers more, but rather would reduce the regulations on their Internet service provider and broadcast competitors. Regarding privacy regulation of social media giants, Chairman Walden said people clearly needed to know how their data and information was being used, but he was clearly not ready to jump on the "regulate the edge" bandwagon that has been revving up. He pointed out that there are user agreements that are enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission, which is the sam

Facebook announced April 9 that it plans to give a limited group of soon-to-be determined academics some access to Facebook data as needed, with a research emphasis on how Facebook influences elections in different countries around the world.

As Mark Zuckerberg prepares to testify before Congress, Facebook is quietly fighting a crucial privacy measure in the Illinois Statehouse. Starting April 11, state legislators will consider a new amendment to the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) that could neuter one of the strongest privacy laws in the US, giving Facebook free rein to run facial recognition scans without users’ consent.