Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan announced the publishing of the report on the personal data usage by corporations[0] . It is the outcome of the government working group [1] that I was a member of. The major portion of it is about the meaningful consent, and the Standard Information Sharing Label[2].
This is significant, but even more significant is that it apparently [3] became the top story of the top three newspapers (Nikkei, Asahi, and Yomiuri) on the morning edition of Friday, May 10, 2013. Yes. THE TOP STORY. In Nikkei newspaper, it is taking over the top 1/3 of the front page.
The discussion at the working group did not stop there and went further. We have talked about “the problem of turning the internet dog into the Pavlov’s dog” and importance of the “implicit consent” based on the context. Further, we have discussed the problem of the reversed direction of the consent: Currently, it is customary that the user give consent to the terms specified by the companies. When you think about it, it is very weird. It is the user who is licensing the personal data to the companies. It is the companies who should agree to the license, not the other way round.
As to the Pavlov’s dog problem, the discussion went further that perhaps we should ban the explicit consent dialog when all the data obtained conforms to the data minimization requirement and no further sharing requirement. That way, we can prevent the most common attack on the privacy: hiding high privacy impact terms among the low privacy impact terms. Yes. We are running to the opposite direction to what proposed EU legislation is heading to, but I believe that is the right way to go.
I may want to discuss all these topics at the KI workshop at the EIC.
The other aspect that made into the top story of the Nikkei newspaper was the selective sharing with itemized purpose of the use. In most cases that I have seen till now, though sometimes user was give the choice to provide individual claims/attributes but the purpose of the use of that particular attribute has not been shown, though in some cases, the purpose of the use for the entire set of claims were shown.
This is another good move, though we need to figure out the right user interface.
Having the report in the top story of major newspaper is very rare. Now that we have achieved it, I am hoping that the working group continues this fiscal year also to further the discussion and potential regulation.
[1] METI Personal Data Working Group. I was a member of it representing Kantara Initiative.
[2] Selective sharing and “easy to understand label” are some of the major component of the report.
[3] Since I am in the US attending NSTIC meeting, I can only see Nikkei Newspaper electronic edition, so only Nikkei Newspaper is verified.