Interesting post by Peter Fleischer, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel, on the Google Public Policy Blog: “Global privacy standards should focus on preventing harm to consumers.” Fleischer points out that, on the one hand, three-quarters of the countries in the world still don’t have meaningful privacy regimes in place. And on the other, “virtually every organisation [in today’s world] - public or private, large or small, offline or online - relies on the collection and use of personal information for core operational purposes.”
Given that reality, what’s needed are new, globally accepted standards of privacy - which Google is working towards. And, Fleischer argues, the best starting point for such a framework is “an entirely new privacy protection principle that does not exist in the regulatory frameworks of the 80s and the 90s: the ‘preventing harm’ principle.” That is, don’t try to stop organizations from collecting information about individuals, because you can’t. But do try to make sure that that information isn’t used to harm individuals.
The trick, of course, is to define “harm.” The standard has been criticized as vague, and the whole idea has turned out to be surprisingly controversial. But then, that’s why the article is worth reading, and the discussion is worth having.
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