FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen wants lawmakers to take a look at the commission’s...

authority in the general privacy area.” For now, Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act “is sufficient to protect consumers,” the Republican said during an event at the Hudson Institute. As a lawyer in private practice before becoming a commissioner, she had said the FTC would be a “second legislature” without existing restrictions on its Section 5 authority. Ohlhausen said Tuesday the commission is “uniquely positioned” to balance the interests of consumer protection and marketplace competition, and has the tools necessary to reach consumers and regulate violators. Congress has been unable to pass privacy legislation this session despite a chorus of calls from lawmakers and the White House to develop enforceable baseline privacy standards to govern the collection, sale and use of consumer data (CD Feb 24 p6). But critics of privacy legislation have said they're skeptical that legislation is needed and they're not hearing a public outcry about any harms from consumer data collection and use (CD March 30 p8). Ohlhausen did not rule out the need for federal privacy rules and said narrowly tailored data-breach legislation could help close the gaps in the commission’s authority. Ohlhausen said there is a need for a uniform federal law to notify consumers when their data have been compromised. Although the many state and federal laws governing data breach notification are similar, she said none of them are identical and a “single standard would let companies know what to do and let consumers know what to expect.” Ohlhausen she had the opportunity to briefly review the European Union’s privacy recommendations for Google, which she said struck “a different balance” from the perspective of U.S. regulators. Ohlhausen would not comment on the commission’s ongoing investigation into Google’s alleged antitrust violations, or discuss her thoughts on the FTC’s proposed changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act rule.