CDT Helps Form New W3C Privacy Working Group
In an important step for online privacy, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has now formed a dedicated Privacy Working Group to help ensure that new standards incorporate mechanisms to protect users’ data when browsing the web.
The Privacy Working Group has been planned for some time, but it was held up by a procedural objection, which was ultimately overruled by a W3C council. Now, the Working Group — co-chaired by representatives from CDT, Brave Software and the Internet Society — is getting down to the business of developing new web standards to protect users across the globe.
The W3C has long been active on privacy issues, of course. CDT has contributed to the organization’s work on these issues for decades, primarily through privacy reviews of proposed new web standards. This new group, however, will do more than review standards proposals from other groups. It will bring together companies, governments, civil society and other interested parties to work proactively on new privacy technology for the web.
First on the agenda: The group has now officially published a draft of the Global Privacy Control (GPC) specification. GPC will allow web users to “flip a switch” in their browsers to request their information not be sold or shared with others. As we noted last year, it’s time to standardize the Global Privacy Control in order to facilitate implementation by companies, including in browsers but also by websites that are required by law in some jurisdictions to comply with GPC requests. And a standard will give policymakers a reference point when they develop laws or regulations allowing people to easily exercise a right to exclude their data from being sold.
Beyond GPC, the Privacy Working Group will examine a range of issues, including privacy for survivors of intimate partner violence seeking information online and protections against invasive online tracking mechanisms including device IDs, IP addresses and browser “fingerprinting.” With digital tracking and surveillance becoming ever more pervasive, the Privacy Working Group will be positioned to respond to new technologies and other developments in the field as they emerge.
CDT invites companies, civil society organizations, government representatives and other interested parties to join the Working Group and collaborate on privacy standards.
