House Privacy Working Group Meets With FTC Commissioners

The House Energy & Commerce Committee Privacy Working Group will meet today to talk about privacy issues and the Federal Trade Commission.

The meetings are closed press, but according to a source familiar with the agenda, the working group will hear from Democratic FTC commissioner Julie Brill and Republican commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen.

Among the topics of expected conversation are the FTC's role in protecting individual privacy, chief privacy issues at the agency and whether there are any authority gaps Congress needs to fill.

The working group is co-chaired by Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

Among the FTC's focuses have been children's online privacy and trying to help stakeholders come up with voluntary standards for enforcing the Obama Administration's privacy bill of rights for things like mobile apps, a do not track regimes, and facial recognition software.

The working group was created last August by the House Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.