Modern Privacy and the Digital Ecosystem: Keynote speech, Consumer Action National Conference

WPF’s Pam Dixon is presenting a keynote speech to the Consumer Action National Conference. The speech, entitled Modern Privacy and the Digital Ecosystem, will cover a wide range of topics, including top-line topics in privacy, key areas to work on going forward, and privacy myths and realities.

The Consumer Action event is being held in November 15 in Chicago, it is by invitation only. The speech will reference a document at the WPF, Top Ten Opt Outs, which has been recently updated.

This new WPF report finds that medical identity theft is still a crime that causes great harms to its victims, and that it is growing overall in the United States; however, there’s a catch. The national consumer complaint data suggests that the crime is growing at different rates in different states and regions of the US, creating medical identity theft “hotspots.” These hotspots are important for patients, policymakers, and healthcare stakeholders to know about so as to address potential risks.

WPF has conducted original research on India's Aadhaar, a national biometric ID system, including field research in India during 2010-2014. WPF has published the original research in a peer-reviewed journal, Nature-Springer, and in Harvard-based Journal of Technology Science. The research found that systemic challenges to data protection and privacy exist in the Aadhaar system, challenges which do have potential remedies. Key lessons can be learned for both the US and the EU as biometric systems grow in popularity.