Key Issues

Intel supports the passage of a comprehensive federal privacy law in the United States. Intel also supports appropriate restriction on the US government's access to and use of personal data while still allowing for effective public-private sharing of information about cybersecurity threats.

• Self-regulatory regimes alone will not adequately protect individuals. While self-regulation plays an important role in safeguarding data, Intel believes that it is not sufficient to provide individuals with necessary protections. Rather, baseline legislation, together with self-regulatory regimes and technological tools, is necessary to protecting data and fostering trust. Privacy regulation, done correctly, can encourage innovation and economic growth by fostering consumer trust in technology. Intel prefers enactment of federal legislation to a patchwork of potentially conflicting state privacy laws.
  
  
• Privacy legislation should be comprehensive and flexible. Intel supports passage of privacy legislation that reflects and addresses the challenges raised by current and emerging technologies and data practices. It must provide effective, reliable protections for individuals and be flexible enough to adapt to rapid changes in technology and data processing innovations. Intel believes that to achieve this goal, legislation must incorporate principles of privacy by design and accountability.
  
  
• Appropriate security is increasingly essential to good privacy. As more digital devices connect to the Internet, the need to share data and applications among devices and to store them remotely—on servers in data centers—will grow. To provide appropriate protections, the security of the networks and devices is critical. At the same time, when devices connect to a network some device information (IP addresses) will need to be connected and processed for security purposes, and any privacy law must recognize the need for this information sharing.
  
  
• Enforcement must be predictable, effective, and accessible. To provide adequate protections for individuals, privacy legislation must provide for robust, harmonized, and predictable enforcement that individuals can readily access and that yields timely and effective results.
  
  
• Privacy legislation should promote innovation and the free flow of data. Privacy legislation should be designed to encourage innovation and impose no unnecessary burdens on companies. Privacy legislation and policy initiatives, such as free trade agreements, should not restrict the movement of data through protectionist measures.