A major trade association comprising technology companies has announced its opposition to bipartisan “information sharing” legislation making its way through the Senate.
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act “does not sufficiently protect users’ privacy or appropriately limit the permissible uses of information shared with the government,” the Computer and Communications Industry Association said in a blog post on Thursday. The association includes Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, NetFlix, Sprint, T-Mobile and Yahoo.
The association added that “appropriately constructed cybersecurity information sharing legislation can provide a more efficient regime for the voluntary sharing of appropriately limited information between the private sector and government.
“But such a system should not come at the expense of users’ privacy, need not be used for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity, and must not enable activities that might actively destabilize the infrastructure the bill aims to protect,” the post concluded.
Advocates of the legislation say it would grant liability protection to private companies that share information about cybersecurity threats with each other and with the government, allowing them to do so without fear of lawsuits from consumers worried their privacy has been violated.
Opponents say the bill would allow the government to obtain information on consumers without their consent and do little to protect against cyberattacks. They point out that there have been no attacks that proponents claim the legislation would have prevented, and that sharing the information simply creates more attack vectors through which adversaries can obtain it.
Notably, T-Mobile lost personal information on 15 million customers this month after hackers breached its credit agency, Experian. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Dianne Feinstein D-Calif., issued a statement calling for the cyberbill’s passage after the breach was announced, writing “special interest groups” had “mischaracterized” it, and that if they continued, they “will only succeed in allowing more personal information to be compromised to criminals and foreign countries.”
It remains to be seen what they will say about T-Mobile’s trade association joining the groups opposing the legislation.
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The legislation may reach the floor of the Senate for a vote within the next two weeks. As part of a deal to hold the vote, the bill’s advocates agreed to vote on 21 amendments proposed by other members. Speaking at the Chamber of Commerce on Oct. 7, Burr said the Senate should be able to process the amendments “in a matter of days.”
