The Failure of Fair Information Practice Principles
The Failure of Fair Information Practice Principles
复制标题
公平信息实践原则的失败
DOI：
10.4324/9781315573717-21
复制
发表时间：
2006
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
F. Cate
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
F. Cate
现代数据保护法建立在“公平信息实践原则”的基础上。“在20世纪70年代和80年代初成立时，FIPPS是广泛的，有抱负的，包括实质性的混合（例如，数据质量，使用限制）和程序（例如，同意、访问）原则。它们反映了人们的广泛共识，即需要制定广泛的标准，以促进个人隐私和在日益依赖技术的全球社会中实现信息流动的承诺。然而，在20世纪90年代和21世纪初，FIPPS在美国、欧洲和其他地方被转化为国家法律，越来越多地被简化为狭隘的法律原则（例如，通知、选择、访问、安全和执行）。这些原则反映了一种程序方法，旨在最大限度地提高个人对数据的控制，而不是个人或社会福利。尽管这种方法在理论上很有吸引力，但在实践中证明是不成功的。企业和其他数据用户承担着法律的义务，而个人则承受着大量的通知和机会，而选择往往有限。通知往往是毫无意义的，因为个人看不到它们或选择忽略它们，它们是用模糊或过于技术性的语言写的，或者它们没有为个人选择提供有意义的机会。在美国，试图强制执行无人阅读的通知，导致了联邦贸易委员会（Federal Trade Commission）扭曲的法律的逻辑，即此类通知产生了可执行的法律的义务，即使它们没有被视为交易的一部分。此外，选择往往是一种烦恼，甚至是对个人的伤害。此外，许多服务不能由个人选择提供。要求作出选择可能有悖于对社会重要的其他活动，如国家安全或执法，或有悖于其他价值观，如通信自由。通知、选择和其他FIPPS的执行充其量是不平衡的。可能造成最大危害的情况往往受到最少的监督，而对FIPPS的无害或技术性违反可能会受到严厉起诉，如果它们是特定法律或义务的主题，并且可以用来产生公众或政治压力。简而言之，基于控制的数据保护系统依赖于狭隘的程序性FIPPS，无法发挥作用。现有证据表明，隐私没有得到更好的保护。这一连串的通知可能会给个人一些增强隐私的错觉，但现实远非如此。结果是最糟糕的：隐私保护没有得到加强，个人和企业为官僚法律付出代价，我们变得如此迷恋通知和选择，以至于我们未能开发出更好的替代品。随着越来越多的州和国家制定不一致的数据保护法律，试图规范日益全球化的信息流，情况只会变得更糟。本文反映了一个温和的第一步，阐明隐私法的方法，不拒绝通知和选择，但不寻求依赖于它的所有目的。借鉴其他形式的消费者保护，其中保护标准在供应商和消费者之间是不可谈判的，我建议各国政府停止基于个人偏好或以其他方式强加当前方法的相当大的交易成本来限制大量个人数据的流动。相反，该文件建议立法者通过遵守消费者隐私保护原则（CPPPS），包括对旨在防止特定伤害的数据处理的实质性限制，来收回FIPPS最初更广泛的概念。CPPPS框架只是第一步。它既不完整，也不完美，但它是一种努力，旨在面对日益相互联系的全球社会中技术能力的爆炸性增长，就隐私的法律的监管和信息流动的价值重新进行更有意义的对话。
Modern data protection law is built on "fair information practice principles." At their inception in the 1970s and early 1980s, FIPPS were broad, aspirational, and included a blend of substantive (e.g., data quality, use limitation) and procedural (e.g., consent, access) principles. They reflected a wide consensus about the need for broad standards to facilitate both individual privacy and the promise of information flows in an increasingly technology-dependent, global society. As translated into national law in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere during the 1990s and 2000s, however, FIPPS have increasingly been reduced to narrow, legalistic principles (e.g., notice, choice, access, security, and enforcement). These principles reflect a procedural approach to maximizing individual control over data rather than individual or societal welfare. As theoretically appealing as this approach may be, it has proven unsuccessful in practice. Businesses and other data users are burdened with legal obligations while individuals endure an onslaught of notices and opportunities for often limited choice. Notices are frequently meaningless because individuals do not see them or choose to ignore them, they are written in either vague or overly technical language, or they present no meaningful opportunity for individual choice. Trying to enforce notices no one reads has led in the United States to the Federal Trade Commission's tortured legal logic that such notices create enforceable legal obligations, even if they were not read or relied upon as part of the deal. Moreover, choice is often an annoyance or even a disservice to individuals. In addition, many services cannot be offered subject to individual choice. Requiring choice may be contrary to other activities important to society, such as national security or law enforcement, or to other values, such as freedom of communication. Enforcement of notice, choice, and the other FIPPS is uneven at best. Situations likely to threaten greatest harm are often subject to the least oversight, while innocuous or technical violations of FIPPS may be prosecuted vigorously if they are the subject of a specific law or obligation and they can be used to generate popular or political pressure. In short, the control-based system of data protection, with its reliance on narrow, procedural FIPPS, is not working. The available evidence suggests that privacy is not better protected. The flurry of notices may give individuals some illusion of enhanced privacy, but the reality is far different. The result is the worst of all worlds: privacy protection is not enhanced, individuals and businesses pay the cost of bureaucratic laws, and we have become so enamored with notice and choice that we have failed to develop better alternatives. The situation only grows worse as more states and nations develop inconsistent data protection laws with which they attempt to regulate increasingly global information flows. This paper reflects a modest first step at articulating an approach to privacy laws that does not reject notice and choice, but does not seek to rely on it for all purposes. Drawing on other forms of consumer protection, in which standards of protection are not negotiable between providers and consumers, I propose that national governments stop subjecting vast flows of personal data to restraints based on individual preferences or otherwise imposing the considerable transaction costs of the current approach. Instead, the paper proposes that lawmakers reclaim the original broader concept of FIPPS by adhering to Consumer Privacy Protection Principles (CPPPS) that include substantive restrictions on data processing designed to prevent specific harms. The CPPPS framework is only a first step. It is neither complete nor perfect, but it is an effort to return to a more meaningful dialogue about the legal regulation of privacy and the value of information flows in the face of explosive growth in technological capabilities in an increasingly interconnected, global society.