While most attendees of the Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) conference in San Francisco this week agreed that more needs to be done to protect consumers' privacy against the onslaught of rapidly advancing technologies that track, store and share sensitive data, how that privacy should be guarded remained a subject of fiery discussion. . . .
While most attendees of the Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) conference in San Francisco this week agreed that more needs to be done to protect consumers' privacy against the onslaught of rapidly advancing technologies that track, store and share sensitive data, how that privacy should be guarded remained a subject of fiery discussion.

While some attendees took the "build-the-privacy-protecting-technologies-and-it-will come" position, others lobbied for legislative action, or a combination of privacy-enhancing technologies and law, arguing that large corporations would have little motivation to deploy the technologies otherwise.

"I don't think vendors are going to build in privacy protections if there is no incentive for profit," said Avi Rubin, principal researcher at AT&T Labs, who added that he would like to see a mix of technology and legislation that guards privacy.

However, relying too much on legislation to ensure privacy is also a sticky subject, according to Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

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