The Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference (or CFP, or the Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy) is an annual
academic conference
An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic or scientific journals ...
held in the United States or Canada about the intersection of
computer technology,
freedom, and
privacy
Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.
The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...
issues.
The conference was founded in 1991,
and since at least 1999,
it has been organized under the aegis of the
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
. It was originally sponsored by
CPSR.
CFP91
The first CFP was held in 1991 in Burlingame, California.
CFP92
The second CFP was held on March 18–20, 1992 in Washington, DC. It was the first under the auspices of the Association for Computing Machinery. The conference chair was Lance Hoffman. The entire proceedings are available from the Association for Computing Machinery at https://dl.acm.org/doi/proceedings/10.1145/142652.
CFP99
The Computers, Freedom and Privacy 99 Conference, sponsored by the
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
,
the 9th annual CFP, was held in Washington, DC from 6 April 1999 to 8 April 1999.
CFP99 focused on international Internet regulation and privacy protection.
There were close to 500 registered participants and attendees included high-level government officials, grassroots advocates and programmers.
The conference chair for CFP99 was
Marc Rotenberg
Marc Rotenberg is president and founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, an independent non-profit organization, incorporated in Washington, D.C. Rotenberg is the editor of ''The AI Policy Sourcebook'', a member of the OECD Expert Group o ...
and the program coordinator was Ross Stapleton-Gray.
Keynote speakers at CFP99 were
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profe ...
, director of the
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working t ...
,
Vint Cerf
Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of " the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Bob Kahn. He has received honorary degrees and awards that includ ...
, president of the
Internet Society
The Internet Society (ISOC) is an American nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1992 with local chapters around the world. Its mission is "to promote the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people ...
and
FTC Commissioner Mozelle Thompson.
Others who spoke at CFP99 included:
David Banisar, policy director at the
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is an independent nonprofit research center in Washington, D.C. EPIC's mission is to focus public attention on emerging privacy and related human rights issues. EPIC works to protect privacy, freedom ...
;
US Representative
Bob Barr
Robert Laurence Barr Jr. (born November 5, 1948) is an American attorney and politician. He served as a federal prosecutor and as a Congressman. He represented Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003. Barr atta ...
former federal prosecutor and Georgia Republican;
Colin Bennett, a privacy expert at Canada's
University of Victoria
The University of Victoria (UVic or Victoria) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. The university traces its roots to Victoria College, the first post-secondary insti ...
;
Paula Breuning, a lawyer for the
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that serves as the President's principal adviser on telecommunications policies pertaining to the United States' e ...
in the
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busi ...
;
Becky Burr, head of the Commerce Department unit overseeing many Internet issues;
Jason Catlett, privacy advocate and president of
JunkBusters;
Scott Charney, head of the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and a ...
computer crimes unit;
the artist Henry Cross;
Simon Davies, Fellow of the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 mill ...
and representative of
Privacy International
Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its cu ...
;
Elizabeth France
Elizabeth Irene France (' Leicester; born 1 February 1950) is the former chair of the Office for Legal Complaints. She was appointed in February 2009 and was chair until 2014 when Steve Green became the Chair. From 1994 to 2002 she was the Data P ...
, head of the UK
Data Protection Registrar
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, su ...
;
Bob Gellman, privacy consultant;
Peter Hustinx, president of the Dutch Data Protection Authority;
Stephen Lau Ka-men,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
's Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data;
Jim Lewis from the
US Commerce Department
The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busi ...
's
Bureau of Export Administration
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that deals with issues involving national security and high technology. A principal goal for the bureau is helping stop the proliferation of weapo ...
;
US Representative
Ed Markey
Edward John Markey (born July 11, 1946) is an American lawyer, politician, and former Army reservist who has served as the junior United States senator from Massachusetts since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representa ...
, a ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee for Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection;
Erich Moechel from
Quintessenz
Quintessenz (German for "quintessence") is a civil liberties advocacy organization based in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria.
Founded in 1994, Quintessenz works on Internet and on-line liberty issues in co-operation with other civil libe ...
, Austria;
Aryeh Neier
Aryeh Neier (born April 22, 1937) is an American human rights activist who co-founded Human Rights Watch, served as the president of George Soros's Open Society Institute philanthropy network from 1993 to 2012, had been National Director of the ...
, president of the
Open Society Institute
Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a st ...
;
Jagdesh Parikh, an official with
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...
;
Philip Reitinger, a prosecutor for the
US Justice Department
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Sta ...
;
Carol Risher, vice president of the
American Association of Publishers
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercial ...
;
Michael Robertson, president of
MP3.com;
Cary Scherman, general counsel of the
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...
;
Bruce Schneier
Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Ce ...
, president of
Counterpane Systems;
Barbara Simons
Barbara Bluestein Simons (born January 26, 1941) is an American computer scientist and the former president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). She is a Ph.D. graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and spent her early ca ...
, president of the
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
;
David Sobel, legal counsel at the
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is an independent nonprofit research center in Washington, D.C. EPIC's mission is to focus public attention on emerging privacy and related human rights issues. EPIC works to protect privacy, freedom ...
;
Latanya Sweeney
Latanya Arvette Sweeney is an American computer scientist. She is the Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and Technology at the Harvard Kennedy School and in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. She i ...
, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Technology and Policy at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
;
Peter Swire
Peter P. Swire (born May 15, 1958) is the Elizabeth and Tommy Holder Chair and Professor of Law and Ethics in the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is an internationally recognized expert in privacy law. Swir ...
, chief counselor for privacy in the US
Office of Management and Budget
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...
;
Greg Taylor of
Electronic Frontiers Australia
Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) is a non-profit Australian national non-government organisation representing Internet users concerned with online liberties and rights. It has been vocal on the issue of Internet censorship in Australia.
...
;
Christine Varney
Christine A. Varney (born December 17, 1955) is an American antitrust attorney who served as the U.S. assistant attorney general of the Antitrust Division for the Obama Administration and as a Federal Trade commissioner in the Clinton Administ ...
, representative of the
Online Privacy Alliance
The Online Privacy Alliance (or "OPA") was a cross-industry coalition of 81 e-commerce companies and associations. It formed in 1998 with the aim of providing a unified voice for companies in the Internet industry to contribute to the definition ...
and former
FTC commissioner;
George Vrandenburg, senior vice president of
America Online
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...
;
Steve Wright, of the UK-based nonprofit Omega Foundation, author of a report on
ECHELON
ECHELON, originally a secret government code name, is a surveillance program ( signals intelligence/SIGINT collection and analysis network) operated by the five signatory states to the UKUSA Security Agreement:Given the 5 dialects that ...
;
Discussion Panels at CFP99 included:
Anonymity and Identity in Cyberspace;
Creation of a Global Surveillance Network;
Global Internet Censorship;
Privacy;
Privacy and data protection policies;
Self Regulation Reconsidered.
Topics covered at CFP99 included:
Anonymity;
Protection of children by parents and teachers, not government;
Fair use of copyrighted material;
Controls over the
export of cryptography
The export of cryptography is the transfer from one country to another of devices and technology related to cryptography.
In the early days of the Cold War, the United States and its allies developed an elaborate series of export control regulat ...
under the
Wassenaar Arrangement
The Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies is a multilateral export control regime (MECR) with 42 participating states including many former Comecon (Warsaw Pact) countries established ...
;
Data mining and identity theft;
Encryption;
Free speech;
Government disclosure;
Human rights;
The link between privacy and free speech;
Discussion between
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...
activists, musicians and the recording industry;
Privacy and data protection by self-regulation or legislation?;
Proposed privacy legislation;
Self-regulation of online privacy;
Whether the Internet would remain "unfettered and unregulated";
Awards at CFP99
The first annual
US Big Brother Awards were made at CFP99 on Wednesday 7 April 1999,
the 50th aniversiary of the publication of George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
.
The awards were made by the London-based
Privacy International
Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its cu ...
to recognize "the government and private sector organizations which have done the most to invade personal privacy in the United States."
Simon Davies, managing director of Privacy International, presented the awards, otherwise known as Orwells.
There were five categories of award: Greatest Corporate Invader, Lifetime Menace, Most Invasive Program, People's Choice, and Worst Public Official.
At CFP99
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ...
made the 1999
EFF Pioneer Award
The EFF Pioneer Award is an annual prize by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for people who have made significant contributions to the empowerment of individuals in using computers. Until 1998 it was presented at a ceremony in Washington, ...
s to Drazen Pantic, Director of OpenNet, Internet provider to Belgrade radio station
B92
RTV B92, or simply B92 (stylized as b92, formerly BΞ92 and B 92), is a Serbian news station and broadcaster with national coverage headquartered in Belgrade.
Founded in 1989 as radio station, it was a rare outlet for Western news and informati ...
; posthumously to Jon Postel, who ran the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet ...
; and
Simon Davies, director of
Privacy International
Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its cu ...
.
Announcements at CFP99
US Representative Edward Markey, (D-Massachusetts) said that to ensure companies post clear and enforcable privacy policies, federal legislation is required,
and that he would re-introduce a privacy bill of rights.
At CFP99
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
,
the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ...
and
Truste TrustArc (formerly TRUSTe) is a privacy compliance technology company based in San Francisco, California. The company provides software and services to help corporations update their privacy management processes so they comply with government laws a ...
announced that they had developed a "Privacy Wizard" to assist webmasters create a
Privacy Preferences Project statement for their websites.
CFP2000
The CFP2000 conference chair was
Lorrie Faith Cranor
Lorrie Faith Cranor, D.Sc. is the FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and is the director of the Carnegie Mellon Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory. She has served as Chi ...
.
CFP2005
The fifteenth iteration of the conference was held in Seattle. The theme of this conference was
equiveillance
Equiveillance is a state of equilibrium, or a desire to attain a state of equilibrium, between surveillance and sousveillance. It is sometimes confused with transparency. The balance (equilibrium) provided by equiveillance allows individuals to ...
, the balance between
surveillance and
sousveillance
Sousveillance ( ) is the recording of an activity by a member of the public, rather than a person or organisation in authority, typically by way of small wearable or portable personal technologies. The term, coined by Steve Mann, stems from th ...
. The equiveillance theme was reflected in the Opening Keynote Address, a panel discussion on equiveillance, and a pre-keynote sousveillance workshop, as well as a sousveillance performance. In keeping with this theme, every conference attendee received a sousveillance system consisting of a "maybecamera" attached to each conference bag. Some of the 500 conference bags contained cameras transmitting live 24/7 video whereas others contained no camera, but merely the familiar camera dome. A third category of conference bag included some with a subtle but visible flashing red light behind the dome. Not all of the wireless web cameras had flashing red lights, and some of the flashing red lights were dummy devices that did not transmit video. The bags that did transmit video also updated various video displays around the conference hall, visible to conference attendees.
CFP2009
CFP2011
The twenty-first annual CFP Conference in 2011, "Computers, Freedom, and Privacy: The Future is Now", was held at the Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC June 14–16. Among the questions and issues explored were: What is social media's role in the charged democracy movement in the Middle East and North Africa; How can technology and social media support human rights, What is the impact of mobile personal computing technology on freedom and privacy? Are the courts, policy and decision makers ready to address freedom and privacy in a 24-7 connected world? Are our leaders techs savvy enough to make good legal and policy decisions regarding the deployment of
smart grid
A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including:
* Advanced metering infrastructure (of which smart meters are a generic name for any utility side device even if it is more capable e.g. a ...
, e-health records, the spread of consumer location based advertising? Cybersecurity, cloud computing, net neutrality, federated ID, ubiquitous surveillance: Are they passing fads or here to stay?
[{{Cite web , url=http://www.cfp.org/2011/wiki/index.php/Main_Page , title=Main Page - CFPWiki]
References
External links
Official site
Computer conferences
Recurring events established in 1991
Association for Computing Machinery
Privacy organizations
Privacy in the United States