| Privacy homePrivacy remains one of the main activities of the Consortium in the area of social responsibility. Privacy has many different aspects in W3C:
At least since Alan Westin wrote his famous books Privacy and Freedom
(1967)
and Databanks in a Free Society (1972)
, Privacy has been a
sustained challenge for computer science. Computing provides powerful tools
that can be used for the good and for the bad of humankind. W3C has started
work on Privacy with P3P and has continued
to explore the Privacy challenges since then. The current highlight is the work
on Do Not Track.
There is no obvious end to the Privacy challenge on the Web. Nearly 10 Years
after the completion of the work on P3P, much of the research in the area of
privacy, accountability and data handling is still heavily influenced by the P3P 1.0 Recommendation and the P3P 1.1 Working Group Note. Even the
Tracking Protection Working Group regularly addresses issues of transparency of
data collection that could be solved by P3P rather than by Do Not Track.
The very successful PrimeLife project allowed to explore new technologies like anonymous credentials, new policy languages and how to integrate the value of privacy into Specifications. With the Project's support, we were able to organize many interesting workshops:
It can be concluded that people need a venue for general privacy discussions related to the Web. All attempts to limit the discussion to a specific policy language or a very narrowly focused interest were rather detrimental to the overall quality of discussion and the success of the venue. This is now addressed by the Privacy Interest Group that runs the public-privacy mailing-list.
The Privacy Interest Group (PING) has stabilized. It not only serves as a platform for the urgently needed broader Privacy debate and exploration concerning the Web Platform. PING also serves as an excellence center for Privacy review of works of other Working Groups. PING has already worked successfully with the Device API Working Group to help with the Web Application Privacy Best Practices. PING works on the Privacy implications of the Encrypted Media Extensions work and also on privacy considerations for SysApps.
High attention is still given to the Do Not Track
header initially
promoted by CDT and implemented for the first time by Mozilla. After the
Microsoft Web
Tracking Protection Member Submission, W3C Staff held a successful Workshop on Web Tracking and User
Privacy at Princeton University on 28-29 April 2011 that led to the
creation of the W3C Tracking Protection WG that is now scheduled to produce the
Tracking
Preference Expression Specification to define the header & protocol and
the Specification
on Tracking Compliance and Scope to define the meaning of this header.
W3C is already looking beyond this first definition of Do Not Track
.
The W3C Workshop: Do Not Track and
Beyond was held In November 2012 in Berkeley, CA. It concluded that we are
on Track with Do Not Track
, but should remain supportive of the long
tail
of the Web, including blogs and smaller Web sites. There is a need for
standards in further increasing transparency in privacy, such as improving
privacy notices with supporting icons or reputation mechanisms.
The discussions around Privacy remain high up on the political agenda on both sides of the Atlantic. While the discussion around Do Not Track in the US matures into a pragmatic compromise, the European debate around the new EU Regulation on data protection is increasing its heat. W3C operates as a focal point of wisdom for the Web in both debates and stands for pragmatic and responsible solutions. This position, in turn, allows W3C to keep out of the confrontation and cater to its role as a platform for compromise and agreement. W3C thus is often cited in the debate by the senate and other governmental bodies in the US. In Europe, W3C congratulated the Rapporteur of the European Parliament for the introduction of Amendment 108 that allows standards to be declared conformant to the future regulation by the Commission upon advice of the data protection board. This could allow Do Not Track to operate in Europe with legal certainty, once the regulation and tracking protection specifications finished, and the recognition procedure accomplished.
The P3P Specification Working Group delivered multiple important milestones for the Web. The most important documents are listed here:
Workshops
We hope that the Tracking Protection Working Group will deliver Last Call
Drafts on Do Not Track
by July. The Privacy Activity has also a
horizontal dimension that will be managed by the Privacy Interest Group that
coordinates over the public-privacy mailing-list.
| Group | Chair | Team Contact | Charter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tracking Protection Working Group (participants) | Matthias Schunter, Justin Brookman, Carl Cargill | Nick Doty | Chartered until 30 April 2014 |
| Privacy Interest Group | Christine Runnegar, Tara Whalen | Nick Doty | Chartered until 1 December 2014 |
This Activity Statement was prepared for TPAC 2013 per section 5 of the W3C Process Document. Generated from group data.
Wendy Seltzer, Privacy Activity Lead$Id: Activity.html,v 1.357 2014-01-17 17:39:01 sysbot Exp $