Historically, the United States and Europe have taken rather divergent approaches to the question of imposing privacy rules to protect consumers’ information. As a rule, European authorities have taken a harder line.
But at a conference in Washington, Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, sat alongside one of his counterparts from the European Union and spoke of an emerging harmony between the two policy frameworks.
“We are very focused at the FTC on formulating a true privacy framework and then of course bringing enforcement cases,” Leibowitz said. “I see more convergence than divergence, and I think it’s incumbent on all of us to use our comparable regimes to strike a balance, but one at a bedrock level that protects consumers’ privacy.”
Leibowitz’s comments come as his own agency is reviewing its privacy policy recommendations, along with officials at the Department of Commerce, and members of Congress are preparing various pieces of legislation to address the issue.
Datamation has the full report on Leibowitz’s comments and the evolving privacy-policy landscape in Washington.