| April 30, 1998 Secretary Re: Privacy Guidelines 1998-P954807The World Wide Web Consoritum (W3C) is working on the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). A deliverable of the Harmonized Vocabulary Working Groups is attached below. The working draft is not an industry guideline nor a set of principles, but it is, in a sense, an implementation of existing principles that will be a part of the final P3P specification. P3P enables sites to describe their privacy practices in a machine understandable way. This is beneficial because users can delegate some of their privacy making decisions to their computer, ensuring users' privacy preferences are respected while enabling a compelling Web experience. Since P3P and this vocabulary will partially facilitate the expression of online information practices, I hope you will find it relevant to your request. Sincerely, Joseph M. Reagle Jr. Joseph M. Reagle Jr.
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| Comment: Much of the work done on this schema was conducted under significant time pressure. Accordingly, there is interest from members of the working group to have some of these issues revisited in the future by the W3C or other entities as appropriate. |
2 Compliance Requirements
This specification is a representation of a rough, inclusive consensus from the Harmonization WG -- meaning that which is specified is recommended as a minimal set of terms. The recommendation and requirements are offset in a colored table. Requirements are expressed over variables which the WG thinks values must be defined for in order to be a valid P3P proposal. Products must support the ability to parse and act upon all the variables defined, though we do not specify the way such values need to be acted upon or presented in a graphical user interface; these are left to implementations and user configuration -- which is addressed in the P3P Implementation Guide.
3 Definitions
- Personally Identifiable Data
- Data that is used to identify, contact, or locate a person. This includes data from which other personally identifying data can easily be derived. This definition focuses on use because it is difficult to determine whether certain data or combinations of data are personally identifiable without information about the context. For example, whether an IP address is static or randomly generated will influence whether it can be used to identify a person -- see Identifiable Use for more of an explanation.
- Purpose
- The reason(s) for data collection and use.
- Practice
- The set of disclosures regarding data usage, including purpose, identifiable use, recipients and other disclosures.
- Equable Practice
- A practice that is very similar to another in that the purpose, recipients, and identifiable use are the same or more constrained than the original (a lower value), and the other disclosures are not substantially different. For example, two sites with otherwise similar practices that follow different -- but similar -- sets of industry guidelines. )
- Service Provider (Data Controller)
- The person or organization which offers information, products or services from a Web site, collects information, and is responsible for the representations made in a practice statement.
4 Data Categories
A data category is a quality of a data element or class that may be used by the user's agent to determine what type of element is under discussion.
| Recommendation: Service providers may use data categories to describe data
elements or data sets. If a service provider requires a representation of data that is not
otherwise referenceable in an easily understood way, we recommend the following terms be
used according to their corresponding definitions. Status: Optional: select all that apply. |
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5 Purposes Defined
The following specifies and defines a set of six purposes for data processing relevant to the Web.
| Recommendation: Service providers must use the following terms to explain the
purpose of data collection. Service providers must disclose all that apply over the data
elements or classes they collect. If a service provider does not disclose that a data
element is used for a given purpose, that is a representation that data is not used for
that purpose. Service providers that disclose that they use data for "other"
purposes should provide human readable explanations of those purposes. Status: Required: select all that apply. |
- Completion and Support of Current Activity
- The use of information by the service provider to complete the activity for which it was provided, such as the provision of information, communications, or transaction services -- for example to return the results from a Web search, to forward email, or place an order.
- Web Site and System Administration
- The use of information solely for the technical support of the Web site and computer system. This would include processing computer account information, and information used in the course of securing, optimizing, and maintaining the site.
- Customization of Site to Individuals
- The use of information to tailor or modify the content or design of the site to the particular individual.
- Research and Development
- The use of information to enhance, evaluate, or otherwise review the site, service, product, or market. This does not include personal information used to tailor or modify the content to the specific individual nor information used to evaluate, target, profile or contact the individual.
- Contacting Visitors for Marketing of Services or Products
- The use of information to contact the individual for the promotion of a product or service. This includes notifying visitors about updates to the Web site.
- Other Uses
- The use of information not captured by the above definitions. (A human readable explanation should be provided in these instances.)
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6 Purpose Qualifiers
Qualifiers are appended to a purpose to provide additional information on how the purpose is realized with respect to a data element or set of data elements. To simplify practice declaration, service providers may promote such qualifications over aggregations (or all) of the data and their purposes. In that case, the highest value that applies to any purpose of the collection should be used for the resulting qualification.
- Identifiable Use
- Is data used in a way that is personally identifiable -- including linking it with
identifiable information about you from other sources? While some data is obviously
identifiable, such as (full_name), other data, such as (zip_code, salary, birth_date),
could allow a person to be identified. Also, a technically astute person in some
circumstances could determine the identity of a user from the IP number in a HTTP log.
This requires a specific effort and is based on how that IP number is registered, whether
it is used by more than one person on a computer, or if it is dynamically allocated by an
internet service provider. Consequently, we refrain from defining any particular data or
set of data as identifiable and focus on whether it is used in an identifiable way.
If identifiable is applied over an aggregation of data (promoted), this means that "some data is used in identifiable form."
| Recommendation: Services must disclose the Identifiable qualifier. Status: Required: select one. |
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1 Yes
- Recipients (Domain of Use)
- The recipients defines an organizational area, or domain, beyond the
service provider and its agents where data may be distributed.
If recipients is applied over an aggregation of data (promoted), this means that "some of the data is distributed to [the highest valued option]." For instance, if all data but the telephone numbers is used by only "organizations following our practices," and the telephone number is used by "organizations following different practices," the service provider has the option of generically stating "data is distributed to organizations following different practices."
| Recommendation: Services must disclose the Recipients qualifier. Status: Required: select all that apply. Comment: Creating a set of values which are simple, informative to the user, and accurate for service provider representations is very challenging and the WG is not completely satisfied with the results. For instance, the issue of transaction facilitators, such as shipping or payment processors, who are necessary for the completion and support of the activity but may follow different practices was problematic. As it stands, such organizations should be represented in whichever category most accurately reflects their practices with respect to the original service provider. |
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7 General Disclosures
The following are general disclosures about the policies of the service provider. Further information on the policies would be found at the policy-URI.
- Access to Identifiable Information
- the ability of the individual to view identifiable information and address questions or concerns to the service provider.
| Recommendation: Service providers must disclose the Access capabilities
associated with data collection. The methods of access is not specified. If data is said
to be used in an identifiable form elsewhere in a statement, this disclosure applies to
it. This is not meant to imply that access to all data is possible, but that some of the
data may be accessible and that the user should communicate further with the service
provider to determine what capabilities they have. Status: Required: select all that apply. Comment: Service providers may also wish to provide capabilities to access to information collected through means other than the Web at the policy-URI. However, the scope of P3P statements are limited to data collected through HTTP or other Web transport protocols. Also, if access is provided through the Web we recommend the use of strong authentication and security mechanisms for such access, however security issues are outside the scope of this document. |
- 0 Identifiable Data is Not Used
- [this should be consistent with the use of the identifiable qualifier].
- 1 Identifiable Contact Information
- access is given to identifiable online and physical contact information (e.g., users can access things such as a postal address).
- 2 Other Identifiable Information
- access is given to other information linked to an identifiable person. (e.g., users can access things such as a their online account charges).
- 3 None
- no access to identifiable information is given.
- Assurance (accountability)
- Does the site have an assuring party that attests that the service will abide by its proposal, follows guidelines in the processing of data, or other relevant assertions. Assurance may come from the service provider or an independent assuring party.
Status: Required: select one.
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- 0 No there is no disclosure with respect to
assurance.
1 Yes there is an assurance mechanism, please see our disclosure. - Other_Disclosures
- Are Disclosures Made with respect to the following:
| Recommendation: If a site wishes to signfy in a proposal that it
makes a disclosure about change_agreement, or retention, it may do so with the following.
No disclosure means that the service provider makes no representation of a policy on that
topic. Status: Optional: select all that apply. Comment: Some members of the working group felt that 1) disclosures could be made about other topics such as security (see the purpose section), 2) more specific values should be provided, and 3) that such disclosures should be required. However, a strong consensus for this could not be reached in the available time. |
- 0 Change_Agreement
- Does the service provider make a disclosure regarding the capability for the user to cancel, or renegotiate the existing agreement at a future time?
- 1 Retention
- Does the service provider make a disclosure on how long data is retained?
8 Acknowledgements
- Liz Blumenfeld, America Online
- Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commission/Ontario
- Scott Chalfant, Matchlogic
- Lorrie Cranor, AT&T
- Jim Crowe, Direct Marketing Association
- Josef Deitl, World Wide Web Consortium
- David Duncan, Information and Privacy Commission/Ontario
- Melissa Dunn, Microsoft
- Patricica Faley, Direct Marketing Association
- Marit Köhntopp, Privacy Commissioner of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
- Tony LAM, Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner's Office
- Tara Lemmey, Narrowline
- Jill Lesser, America Online
- Steve Lucas, Matchlogic
- Deirdre Mulligan, Center for Democracy and Technology
- Nick Platten, Data Protection Consultant (formerly of DG XV, European Commission)
- Joseph Reagle, World Wide Web Consortium
- Ari Schwartz, Center for Democracy and Technology
- Jonathan Stark, TRUSTe