Human rights

• "We've been a long-standing partner with the National Fair Housing Alliance, working together to address systemic racism through targeted investments and education.
• "Affordable housing creates stability for families, and it is the number one way for people to build wealth," said Nationwide Chief Administrative Officer Gale King.
• National Fair Housing Alliance CEO Lisa Rice commended Nationwide for its commitment to the Keys Unlock Dreams campaign.
• Nationwide, Nationwide is on your side and the Nationwide N and Eagle are service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.

• The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a sharp uptake in the use of video teleconferencing software, increasing risks around the collection and use of personal information.
• The open letter provides video teleconferencing companies with principles to help them identify and address some of the key privacy risks, and better protect peoples personal information.
• The letter is for all video conferencing companies, but has also been sent directly to Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom, House Party and Google.

Joint statement on global privacy expectations of Video Teleconferencing companies

Introduction

This is an open letter to companies providing Video Teleconferencing (VTC) services. We write to you as a subset of the global privacy regulatory community, with responsibility for protecting the privacy rights of citizens across the world.

Privacy concerns

• This increase in use exacerbates existing risks with the handling of personal information by VTC companies, and also creates new ones.
• Reports in the media, and directly to us as privacy enforcement authorities, indicate the realisation of these risks in some cases.
• This has given us cause for concern as to whether the safeguards and measures put in place by VTC companies are keeping pace with the rapidly increasing risk profile of the personal information they process.

This letter

• The purpose of this open letter is to set out our concerns, and to clarify our expectations and the steps you should be taking as VTC companies to mitigate the identified risks and ultimately ensure that our citizens personal information is safeguarded in line with public expectations and protected from any harm.
• Note that this is a non-exhaustive list of the data protection and privacy issues associated with VTC.
• It is intended to remind you of some of the key areas to consider given the increased use of your VTC services.

Principles

1. Security

• Todays security measures may soon become outdated and compromised by emerging threats.
• During the current pandemic we have observed some worrying reports of security flaws in VTC products purportedly leading to unauthorised access to accounts, shared files, and calls.
• Your organisation should remain constantly aware of new security risks and threats to the VTC platform and be agile in your response to them.
• We would anticipate that you routinely require users of your platform to upgrade the version of the app they have installed, to ensure that they are up-to-date with the latest patches and security upgrades.

2. Privacy-by-design and default

• Simple measures to achieve this include:
  • creating privacy conscious default settings that are prominent and easy to use, including implementing strong access controls as default, clearly announcing new callers, and setting their video / audio feeds as mute on entry;
  • implementing features that allow business users to comply with their own privacy obligations, including features that enable them to seek other
  • users’ consent; and
  • minimising personal information or data captured, used and disclosed by your product to only that necessary to provide the service.
  • For instance, we have seen this manifest itself in well documented accounts of unexpected third-party intrusion to calls.
  • This means making data protection and privacy integral to the services you provide to the customer.
  • Always consider, as a starting point, the most sensitive information that could potentially be shared on your platform, and adopt the most privacy-friendly settings as default (similar to the principle of least privilege in cyber security).
  • People who use your platform for less sensitive conversations or content sharing can adjust these settings to suit their requirements.

3. Know your audience

• During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen many examples of VTC platforms being deployed in contexts for which they were not originally designed.
• This can create new risks that you may not have anticipated prior to the current crisis.
• Therefore, make sure that you review and determine the new and different environments and users of your VTC platform as a result of the pandemic.

4. Transparency and fairness

• This information should be provided pro-actively, be easily accessible and not simply buried in a privacy policy.
• Where user consent regarding the handling of personal information is required, you should ensure that such consent is specific and informed.
• Consider how any changes you make to future versions of the platform will affect all of the above.
• Assess their impact and consider whether it is important to make users aware of these changes.

5. End-user control

• Some of the more novel features of VTC platforms may raise the risk of covert or unexpected monitoring.
• While the companies and institutions using your VTC platform have their own data protection, privacy, and broader legal and ethical considerations in making decisions about the use of monitoring features, you should take your own steps to ensure that end-users of your service are empowered by having appropriate information and control.
• Where possible, you should also include a mechanism for end-users to choose not to share that information, for example via opt-out, noting that opt-in mechanisms might be more appropriate in certain instances.

Summary

• But ease of staying in touch must not come at the expense of peoples data protection and privacy rights.
• We welcome responses to this open letter from VTC companies, by 30 September 2020, to demonstrate how they are taking these principles into account in the design and delivery of their services.
• Responses will be shared amongst the joint signatories to this letter.

• The Federal Trade Commission will host PrivacyCon 2020 to examine the latest research and trends related to consumer privacy and data security.
• A link to view PrivacyCon will be posted the morning of the event to ftc.gov and the event page .
• The event will feature opening remarks by FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Andrew Smith, as well as presentations and discussions on a variety of privacy and data security research.
• The event will be tweeted live from the FTCs Twitter page (@FTC) using the hashtag #PrivacyCon20.

• LOS ANGELES, July 20, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Film Festival Flix will launch a new Virtual Festival streaming channel for the 9th anniversary of the Whistleblower Summit and Film Festival from July 28 - July 31.
• "We're excited to have the Whistleblower Summit and Film Festival join Film Festival Flix, shares Film Festival Flix CEO, Benjamin Oberman.
• Film Festival Flix is our modern solution," says Marcel Reid, Whistleblower Summit and Film Festival Co-founder/Festival Director.
• The Whistleblower Summit & Film Festival is the intersection of law, journalism, entertainment, and popular culture.