Action Re. Policy Note to DAP WG and others

At the end of Friday's meeting I was given an action to draft a note 
that the TAG may want to send to the DAP WG,
the Geolocation WG and possible others.  I don't know if this was 
recorded as a formal action as we were in the process of adjourning.  I 
have nevertheless prepared a draft for the TAG's consideration.  See below.

I will miss 3 telcons due to vacation, etc.  If the TAG can agree on the 
wording, as below or suitably amended,
feel free to send the note.  Please copy Rigo Wenning and Thomas Roessler.


  Draft TAG Note Re. User Policy

The W3C Policy Languages Interest Group maintains a Wiki which contains 
real world cases where personal information has been compromised due to 
inadequate policy or poor/nonexistent enforcement: 
http://www.w3.org/Policy/pling/wiki/InterestingCases. One of these cases 
describes how Virgin Mobile used photos that it found on Flickr in a 
national advertising program.  The photos appeared on large billboards, 
much to the surprise of the owner and the subject. 

In the public mind, issues related to the management and protection of 
user information in Web Applications, Device access over the Web and 
Services provided over the Web loom large and must be addressed.  The 
TAG, therefore, urges WGs working in these areas to include in their 
architecture the ability to include policy information to control access 
to user data, retention of user data and related concerns.   It should 
be possible to include policy information in API calls in a flexible 
manner, perhaps using an extension mechanism.

There has been some dialog in this area.  The IETF GeoPriv WG has 
requested the W3C Geolocation WG to add additional support for user 
privacy.  See: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-geolocation/2009Aug/0006.html

There is a discussion thread on this subject on the Geolocation Mailing 
list: 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-geolocation/2009Jun/thread.html#msg98 


-- 
All the best, Ashok

Received on Tuesday, 29 September 2009 21:05:02 UTC