Privacy Laws: Not the Answer?

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Consumers are their own worst enemies when it comes to protecting their privacy online, according to experts and privacy advocates.

They use their names as passwords, don't update their antivirus software, and don't install firewalls to keep hackers out of their home PCs.

They want the government to protect them from Internet fraud, but not if it means Big Brother is watching their every keystroke and mouse click.

But either they should do something or the government must, say experts at a Federal Trade Commission conference here this week. And government agencies and private organizations alike prefer that people take more responsibility for their own security.

Privacy Paradox

The event is part of the FTC's battle to protect consumer privacy through technology and to fight digital crime and nuisances, including spam, that clog the engines of e-commerce.

"We put computers in all the schools, but we're not teaching kids cybercitizenship or cybersecurity," says Larry Clinton, chief of staff at the Internet Security Alliance. The alliance is a nonprofit research forum affiliated with Carnegie-Mellon's CERT security center.

What's more, say experts, a "privacy paradox" exists in which consumer behavior undermines their security interests.

For example, the nation's identification systems--such as birth certificates and Social Security numbers--are "cobbled together," in different databases maintained by various agencies. But "hook them all together, and we start freaking out about national identity schemes," says Richard Purcell, chief executive officer of the Corporate Privacy Group, a privacy-issues consulting firm.

Consumers "hate the weaknesses of the system" but reject government protection systems that might infringe on their civil liberties, Purcell says.

Identity fraud is the fastest-growing U.S. financial crime, partly because hackers can access massive amounts of data on the Internet, according to FTC research. Criminals hack into networks and steal identities and credit card numbers from the digital pools of information held by corporations and individual PCs.

Problems Expand

That reservoir of data is growing exponentially, as more people shop, bank, and make travel reservations online.

For example, online purchases using Visa credit cards now account for 7 percent of the company's retail transactions. Online usage has tripled since 2000, says Mark MacCarthy, Visa USA senior vice president for public policy.

However, 15 percent of Visa's total losses stem from Internet purchases made with stolen credit card numbers.

Experts say consumers simply must become savvier surfers. Too often, consumers trust a Web site based on its colors and design, not its content. They frequently skip over the dry but honest privacy policies that legitimate businesses post, according to a Consumer Web Watch Survey in 2002.

"National security demands [that] consumers, government, and industry protect personal privacy," says Mary Culnan, an information technology professor at Bentley College in Boston. In fact, suggestions for ways individual users can help secure the Internet is part of the administration's National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace.

But "all the software [protection] in the world is not going to change people's behavior," Culnan warns.

Consumer Advice

Experts offer a handful of simple steps consumers can take to protect their online privacy:

• Use passwords of eight or more characters.
  
  
• Combine numbers and letters in passwords.
  
  
• Install firewalls on home PCs, especially if you have a broadband connection.
  
  
• Turn off the broadband cable modem periodically. Otherwise, hackers can easily surf personal Web connections.
  
  
• Update antivirus software--a new virus is created every 12 seconds.
  
  
• Read Web sites' privacy policies before providing personal information on Web forms.
  
  

"Consumer use of the Internet has not reached its potential yet, but we all have visions of a strong and vibrant global marketplace," says Mozelle Thompson, an FTC commissioner.

The stakes are ever higher for technology companies to pay attention to consumer demands, including privacy, he says.