Last week, I posted about a recent move by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) to introduce legislation that would provide Americans with greater online privacy protections.
In a similar move, according to ComputerWeekly, Britain’s Prime Ministers called yesterday for a “Green Paper” to offer their citizens enhanced privacy protection both on and offline.
Across borders, governments are recognizing that privacy protection is a real and growing issue, as the global society moves increasingly online. Cloud computing as well as advertising vehicles like Facebook’s Beacon and Google Wave are just a few examples of how we are handing over our personal information – knowingly and unknowingly – to advertisers.
In yesterday’s Green Paper request, the MPs went a step further to say that the ISP – internet service providers – should bear more of the responsibility for safeguarding their users privacy and online security.
Like Rep. Boucher’s vision, PMs said that consumers should explicitly opt in to targeted online advertising.
MP Derek Wyatt, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Communications group (apComms), predicted that Internet privacy would become a “very big” issue over the next five years, especially if nothing is done now.
Not really groundbreaking insight from the MP, but it does subtly highlight that right now there is a lot of talk without much action.
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