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Informational Injury
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Auditorium

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Event Description

Information about consumers has become a key input to innovative products and services. However consumers may suffer injury when information about them is misused. The Federal Trade Commission hosted a workshop on December 12, 2017, to examine consumer injury in the context of privacy and data security. The workshop featured opening remarks by Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen and brought together a variety of stakeholders, including industry representatives, consumer advocates, academics, and government researchers, to discuss various issues related to the injuries consumers suffer when information about them is misused.

Panelists discussed questions such as how to best characterize these injuries, how to accurately measure such injuries and their prevalence, and what factors businesses and consumers consider when evaluating the tradeoffs between providing information and potentially increasing their exposure to injuries.

The FTC invites comments from the public on the topics covered in the workshop. Topics of interest include the following:

  • What are the qualitatively different types of injuries from privacy and data security incidents? What are some real life examples of these types of informational injury to consumers and to businesses?
  • What frameworks might we use to assess these different injuries? How do we quantify injuries? How might frameworks treat past, current, and potential future outcomes in quantifying injury? How might frameworks differ for different types of injury?
  • How do businesses evaluate the benefits, costs, and risks of collecting and using information in light of potential injuries? How do they make tradeoffs? How do they assess the risks of different kinds of data breach? What market and legal incentives do they face, and how do these incentives affect their decisions?
  • How do consumers perceive and evaluate the benefits, costs, and risks of sharing information in light of potential injuries? What obstacles do they face in conducting such an evaluation? How do they evaluate tradeoffs?

You can find a full list of questions and information about how to submit comments in the detailed public notice about the workshop. The deadline for submitting comments is January 26, 2018.

The workshop, which was free and open to the public, was held at the FTC’s Constitution Center, 400 7th St., SW, Washington, DC.

  • 8:30 am

    Registration

    9:15 am

    Introductory Remarks

    Cora Han
    Attorney, Federal Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection

    Opening Remarks

    Maureen Ohlhausen
    Acting Chairman, Federal Trade Commission

    9:30 am

    Panel 1: Injuries 101

    This panel will survey a broad array of negative outcomes that arise from the unauthorized access to or misuse of consumers’ personal information. Discussion topics will include financial and medical identity theft, fraud, health and safety concerns, time and effort expenses, and other types of consumer impacts.

    Moderators:

    • Jacqueline Connor
      Attorney, Federal Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection
    • Daniel Wood
      Economist, Federal Trade Commission, Division of Consumer Protection

    Panelists:

    • Pamela Dixon
      Executive Director, World Privacy Forum
    • Damon McCoy
      Assistant Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, New York University Tandon School of Engineering
    • Lauren Smith
      Policy Counsel, Future of Privacy Forum
    • Cindy Southworth
      Executive Vice President, National Network to End Domestic Violence
    • Heather Wydra
      Supervising Attorney, Whitman-Walker Health

    10:45 am

    Break

    11:15 am

    Panel 2: Potential Factors in Assessing Injury

    This panel will examine the potential factors in assessing consumer injury, including type of injury, magnitude of injury, and sensitivity of consumer data. Discussion topics will also include whether the same factors are important in both the privacy and data security contexts, the risk of injury versus realized injury, and when government intervention is warranted.

    Moderators:

    • Neil Chilson
      Acting Chief Technologist, Federal Trade Commission
    • Maneesha Mithal
      Associate Director, Federal Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection

    Panelists:

    • Alessandro Acquisti
      Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College
    • James C. Cooper
      Associate Professor of Law and Director, Program on Economics & Privacy, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
    • Michelle De Mooy
      Director, Privacy & Data Project, Center for Democracy & Technology
    • Geoffrey Manne
      Executive Director, International Center for Law & Economics
    • Paul Ohm
      Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

    12:45 pm

    Lunch

    1:45 pm

    Panel 3: Business and Consumer Perspectives

    This panel will examine how businesses and consumers perceive and evaluate the benefits, costs, and risks of collecting and sharing information in light of potential benefits and injuries. Discussion topics will include the considerations businesses take into account when choosing privacy and data security practices, and how consumers make decisions about sharing information.

    Moderators:

    • Cora Han
      Attorney, Federal Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection
    • Daniel Wood
      Economist, Federal Trade Commission, Division of Consumer Protection

    Panelists:

    • Omri Ben-Shahar
      Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
    • Leigh Freund
      President & CEO, Network Advertising Initiative
    • Jennifer Glasgow
      Privacy Expert
    • Bob Gourley
      Partner, Cognitio
    • Katie McInnis
      Policy Counsel, Consumers Union

    3:10 pm

    Break

    3:30 pm

    Panel 4: Measuring Injury

    This panel will examine different methods for and challenges in assessing and quantifying informational injury. Discussion topics will include how to quantify injury, including risk of injury, for data breaches and privacy violations, and how consumers’ choices and reported preferences can be accounted for in such measurements.

    Moderators:

    • Jacqueline Connor
      Attorney, Federal Trade Commission, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection
    • Doug Smith
      Economist, Federal Trade Commission, Division of Consumer Protection

    Panelists:

    • Garrett Glasgow
      Senior Consultant, NERA Economic Consulting
    • Ginger Jin
      Professor of Economics, University of Maryland
    • Lynn Langton
      Chief, Victimization Statistics. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice
    • Catherine Tucker
      Professor of Management and Professor of Marketing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management
    • Josephine Wolff
      Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Rochester Institute of Technology

    4:45 pm

    Closing Remarks

    Andrew Stivers
    Deputy Director for Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission, Bureau of Economics

FTC Privacy Policy

Under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) or other laws, we may be required to disclose to outside organizations the information you provide when you pre-register. The Commission will consider all timely and responsive public comments, whether filed in paper or electronic form, and as a matter of discretion, we make every effort to remove home contact information for individuals from the public comments before posting them on the FTC website.

The FTC Act and other laws we administer permit the collection of your pre-registration contact information and the comments you file to consider and use in this proceeding as appropriate.  Under the Freedom of Information Act or other laws, we may be required to disclose to outside organizations the information you provide when you pre-register.  For additional information, including routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, see the Commission’s Privacy Act system for public records and comprehensive privacy policy.

This event will be open to the public and may be photographed, videotaped, webcast, or otherwise recorded.  By participating in this event, you are agreeing that your image — and anything you say or submit — may be posted indefinitely at ftc.gov or on one of the Commission's publicly available social media sites.

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