FTC Commissioner: Let Big Data Flourish, But 'Reclaim' Privacy

The issue of privacy in the era of big data has come to the fore recently in the wake of National Security Agency leaks — as it well should, according to Julie Brill, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.

“We don’t have to pass judgment on the NSA or Snowden to acknowledge the disclosures have sparked a necessary and overdue debate,” Brill told the Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference in a keynote last Wednesday.

“Many consumers have been loath to examine too closely the price we pay, in terms of forfeiting control of our personal data, for all the convenience, communication, and fun of a free-ranging and mostly free cyberspace,” said Brill, Vermont’s former assistant attorney general for consumer protection and antitrust.