ETA Submits Comments to the FCC Regarding Proposed Privacy & Data Security Rules
May 27, 2016
The Electronic Transactions Association (“ETA”) hereby submits its comments in response to the Commission’s above-captioned Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”).1 ETA is the leading trade association for the payments industry, representing over 500 companies that offer electronic transaction processing products and services. ETA’s members include mobile broadband service providers that may be affected by the Commission’s proposed privacy and data security rules. In formulating rules to govern privacy and data security obligations of broadband Internet access service (“BIAS”) providers, the Commission must take care to ensure that such providers are not put at a competitive disadvantage by being subject to stricter or different regulation than other operators in the Internet ecosystem. Rather than reinvent the wheel for BIAS providers, ETA urges the Commission to follow the lead taken by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) in protecting consumer privacy and data security and not to duplicate privacy obligations already imposed by other provisions of federal law, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”).