The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has circulated a proposal for a new field of activity on "Privacy by Design for Consumer Goods and Services." As the U.S. member body to ISO, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) invites all relevant and interested stakeholders to submit comments on the proposal by the end of the business day on October 27, 2017.
Submitted by BSI, the ISO member from the United Kingdom, the proposal describes the specification of the design process to provide consumer goods and services that meet consumers' domestic processing privacy needs as well as the personal privacy requirements of data protection.
The proposal also details how the standard may help to protect consumers from fraud, ransom demands, and other forms of privacy invasion, as well as privacy-breaking exploits resulting from lost and stolen personal data and high-jacking of consumer devices. The scope document emphasizes that the "protection of children and the more vulnerable consumer" are of particular concern.
Work in this area is a response to consumer devices that have been harnessed by hackers to attack organizations, including critical infrastructure, making a standard specific to the privacy challenges of consumer goods and services a priority. Furthermore, the proposal notes that many privacy standards are organization specific, and that there is a need for a privacy by design standard that focuses on the consumer aspect.
All interested stakeholders are invited to review the proposal, which includes a listing of relevant and existing documents at the international, regional, and national levels, and stakeholder categories that may benefit from the proposal.
Please submit comments to Steve Cornish, ANSI senior director of international policy ([email protected]), by close of business on October 27, 2017. Based on the input received, the ANSI ISO Council (AIC) will then be asked to approve an ANSI positionwith comments to be submitted to ISO before its December 7, 2017, deadline for voting on this proposal.
ANSI has published an explanatory information document outlining the process used to develop U.S. positions on issues and activities under consideration by ISO and IEC.