Ex-Commerce Official: Balance Privacy and Security With Innovation in Global Partnerships
When thinking about global partnerships, especially those in research and emerging technology, the U.S. must ensure that privacy and security are balanced with the need for effective collaboration, Don Graves, former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, told the American Bar Association's Privacy and Emerging Technology National Institute Friday.
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“How do we ensure that we're protecting our IP ... [and] technological thinking? [And that] we're ensuring privacy of our consumers at the same time that we're allowing for [the] back-and-forth flow of ideas so that we can continue to innovate?” It's a "big challenge for the country going forward.”
The issue, said Laura Possessky, vice president of business affairs and assistant general counsel at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is a "fascinating" continuum between commerce and national security. “We, of course, want to promote and be competitive in the technology space, but we also have to realize that those same technologies can both be vulnerabilities and enhance our national security interests.”
Similarly, Graves said, “As a country, we have to think about the ways that we ... optimize and find that balance around getting good products, getting products that are affordable, but also protecting against all the types of things that could happen if another country is controlling the technology,” he said.