THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _______________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release June 21, 2000 STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY Rapid changes in technology, and the vast increases in access to information that they make possible, are enormously important to our future prosperity. To ensure that such growth is achieved while protecting privacy, the Administration has called for private sector leadership, legislation when necessary, responsible government handling of personal information, and for an informed public. Today, the White House is pleased to advance these goals by supporting an initiative that harnesses technology to protect privacy on the Internet. The World Wide Web Consortium, an international organization made up of over 420 members from industry, academia, privacy groups, and public policy experts, is now publicly releasing its P3P standard. The home page of the White House web site will be one of the initial locations for demonstrating the new P3P standard, along with the Department of Commerce and over 35 other public and private sector locations. P3P uses software to give consumers control over the use of their personal information. P3P allows consumers through their browser to express their privacy preferences. Users' browsers then communicate those preferences to web sites in a machine readable format. P3P offers a technological alternative to having consumers read the privacy policy at each web site. A user's browser would automatically "read" the web site's privacy policy to see whether the web site meets the user's preferences for whether personal data can be shared with other sites. If a site shares data in ways that go beyond the user's preferences, then the user gets to decide whether to proceed with browsing at that site. In addition, P3P will place privacy policies where users can easily find them. The P3P initiative is another example of the President's and Vice President's support for private sector leadership in electronic commerce. The initiative is an example of how technology that empowers consumers is, in the words of the Vice President, "an important step towards giving consumers greater control over their personal information." By building P3P into the home page of the White House, the Administration shows its commitment to continue exploring technological tools that help protect Americans' privacy online. Last year, the Administration lived up to its promise to post clear privacy policies on the web sites of all federal agencies. This year, the Administration continues to take positive steps to make the government a model of good information practices. Users with a P3P-enabled web browser can access our P3P-based privacy policy for the White House home page at www.whitehouse.gov/index.html. ###
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