From The Consumer Reports Digital Lab Team (digitallab@cr.consumer.org). Who should read this? This writing is aimed at California regulators, the CA Privacy Protection Agency, and other states with authorized representative provisions in their privacy laws. If you’re not that audience, you may be interested in an overview of this research or our recommendations for covered businesses. Summary In Fall 2021,
Category: Authorized Agent
A Dreamboat Authorized Agent Process
In fall 2021, Consumer Reports Digital Lab launched a study to understand more about the data rights provided to consumers under the California Consumer Privacy Act. As an authorized agent, we learned a lot about how to send data access requests on behalf of consumers. Our team and our fearless volunteers saw success and challenges during this process. Lots of emails
Opportunity: R&D Program Support
We’re seeking a professional with great communication skills and a passion for privacy to join the Digital Lab team on a short-term contract basis. This is a good opportunity for an early career technologist who wants to work on an experimental product, or a mid- or late- career professional looking to get experience in public interest technology for the first
Opportunity: Freelance Engineering Support – Permission Slip
We’re seeking a full stack software engineer with an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for privacy to provide contract engineering support to the Digital Lab team. This is a remote opportunity for a seasoned engineer who wants to work on an experimental product and cares about advancing digital rights in the United States. Scope: You will be supporting the closed
Watch CR’s Data Rights Roundtable co-hosted with the MIT Media Lab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXi6uA6ETbw On October 19th, Consumer Reports co-hosted a virtual Data Rights Roundtable with MIT Media Lab to discuss an early draft of a data rights protocol that will create a standard method for consumers to exchange data requests with companies. You can view this virtual event here. We are inviting public review of our work to date. You can offer
Standardizing data rights requests with a common protocol
There is no standard way to exchange data rights requests under the law today. This means consumers need to contact companies and interact with them one by one to meaningfully control their data. Frequently consumers are asked to surface different types of information about themselves in these interactions with companies, which they say is dissatisfying and time-consuming. These barriers make
Helping consumers see their data with a CCPA data access agent
Last year, Consumer Reports launched an Authorized Agent pilot to help consumers stop the sale of their data by companies. The results inspired the continued development of authorized agents and a new pilot to help consumers retrieve copies of their data from companies. [caption id="attachment_5207" align="aligncenter" width="852"] Image courtesy of Afsal and OpenIDEO’s Cybersecurity Visuals Challenge.[/caption] The California Consumer Privacy
Calling all public interest tech researchers!
Are you passionate about privacy, security, or digital rights? Do you work on consumer protection research or new methods to study the digital world? If so, keep reading! At CR’s (Consumer Reports) Digital Lab, we are now accepting applications for paid, non-resident fellows to uncover and solve for consumer harms in the digital world. This ten month fellowship provides a
On Operating a Do Not Sell Authorized Agent Under CCPA
Consumer Reports became an authorized agent, submitted opt-out requests on behalf of California consumers — and learned a lot. [caption id="" align="aligncenter"]Image courtesy of Bronney Hui and OpenIDEO’s Cybersecurity Visuals Challenge[/caption] The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is the nation’s first comprehensive commercial privacy law and it extends important new data rights to consumers. That said, it can take people an extraordinary
Opportunity: Design Futures for a “Consumer Data Co-op”
U.S. consumers have little control over the collection and sale of their personal data, which leads to profiling, manipulation, price discrimination and other practices that cut against consumers’ best interests. Regulations such as California’s CCPA and Europe’s GDPR introduce new data rights that seek to restore power to individuals, but also depend on consumers’ practical ability and motivation to exercise
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