think geolocation offers many opportunities for innovation and regulation is premature.ou, senator, for your leadership on the criminalization of the stalking apps. >> thank you, dr. atkinson. >> good afternoon. is cindy southworth. representing the minnesota coalition for battered women. all 56 coalitions. i founded the safety net project to support survivors, train police, and work with technologists and policymakers on thoughtful innovation. we work closely with many technology companies. we serve on the safety advisory board. presented, we have over 900 trainings to more than 65,000 practitioners. we love technology. we think of ourselves as the geeks of the domestic violence movement. i want to say that stalkers use location tracking services, devices, andgps smartphone applications. some spyware is one of the most problematic. it allows abusers to monitor much more than location. it does not notify the victim that it has been installed. a standard feature that developers go to great lengths to hide, it does not show up on most -- most phones as an installed app. th

think geolocation offers many opportunities for innovation and regulation is premature. you, senator, for your leadership on the criminalization of the stalking apps. >> thank you, dr. atkinson. >> good afternoon. is cindy southworth. representing the minnesota coalition for battered women. all 56 coalitions. i founded the safety net project to support survivors, train police, and work with technologists and policymakers on thoughtful innovation. we work closely with many technology companies. we serve on the safety advisory board. presented, we have over 900 trainings to more than 65,000 practitioners. we love technology. we think of ourselves as the geeks of the domestic violence movement. i want to say that stalkers use location tracking services, devices, andgps smartphone applications. some spyware is one of the most problematic. it allows abusers to monitor much more than location. it does not notify the victim that it has been installed. a standard feature that developers go to great lengths to hide, it does not show up on most -- most phones as an installed app.

one is commercial use of geolocation by third partying. the second is the use of that information by individuals, particularly around stalk, since these issues are separate and unrelated, i'll address them separately. the issue of limiting the collection of geolocation by third parties in our view would stifle innovation in an area that is rapidly evolving. we've seen in the last few years tremendous growth in location based services and importantly the u.s. has led in this. the top ten internet companies in the world, eight are american. this is in part because our approach to regulation in this fast-moving digital age has really been to not regulate ahead of time, unlike europe, which is home to none of those ten internet firms, they have embraced the principle to regulate well in advance of any real harms. this principle is location for location based services especially, in part because there's tremendous innovation happening, and innovation that will continue to happen and we'll probably see more innovation in the next five years than

we brought several cases against that shared geolocation without consent or notice to consumers. we do have authority, but we need to prove deception or unfairness. requirementssent with exceptions for legitimate lawthat are in the proposed would make it easier for us to enforce. >> you would welcome this additional measure? >> we very much support the goals and the basic provisions of the bill, yes. >> do you plan to have roundtables or workshops or other means of introducing awareness on students and others? >> we recently had a seminar on mall tracking, which is not about stalking, but it is about the use of gps to track consumers movements in stores and i think that raised awareness about the use of geolocation and we will be issuing a report on that and we will be -- we continue to have workshops and seminars on consumer protection issues like these. chairman.ou, mr. >> i'm going to ask one short question. the latest statistics we have on the prevalence of gps stalking are from a 2006 study conducted by the department. back then, 25,000 people a year were victims of gps stal

the bill before us regulates the commercial collection of geolocation information. some concerns have been raised about its effect on businesses and applications that use geolocation information to provide consumers with services that they now rely on. i'd like to enter into the record letters from the national retail federation and the interactive advertisement bureau if that's okay. >> sorry. without objection. >> thanks. in our efforts to protect the privacy of americans, which is extremely important, we've got to be careful not to stifle innovation in dynamic sectors in the economy. a lot of the concerns that have been expressed are about static regulations that deal with a dynamic sector of the economy, and we want to make sure that we don't hamper development of new products and technologies. with that, i look forward to the witnesses. thanks. >> thank you, senator flake. while the first panel of witnesses has seated themselves, thank you. bea hanson is the principal deputy director of the united states department of justice office on violence against women. b

the bill before us regulates the commercial collection of geolocation information. some concerns have been raised about its effect on businesses and applications that use geolocation information to provide consumers with services that they now rely on. i'd like to enter into the record letters from the national retail federation and the interactive advertisement bureau if that's okay. >> sorry. without objection. >> in our efforts to protect the privacy of americans, which is extremely important, we have to be careful not to stifle innovation in dynamic sectors in the economy. a lot of the concerns that have been expressed are about static regulations that deal with a dynamic sector of the economy, and we want to make sure that we don't hamper development of new products and technologies. with that, i look forward to the witnesses. thanks. >> thank you, senator flake. um, while the first panel of witnesses has seated themselves, thank you. bea hanson is the principal deputy director of the united states department of justice office on violence against women. before

more importantly, i disagree with you that the provision proved too broad for all using geolocation data." my bill requires minors only us a nap is running in a way that is intercept the ball. -- only if an app is running inperceptible. you say this is a legitimate app imperceptibleably to the user." took a look at the home screen on my iphone and there it was. this is not my iphone but it is second from the left on the top there and it shows up on your .ome screen by default you cannot delete it. it is impossible. every time it gets your location, a little arrow pops up . i don't know if you can see this . it is also in your privacy settings under location services . p is reallyd book ap easy to perceive, at least to me. any apps like passbook app would not have to remind of anything under my bill. my point is that it is not a app ishat passbook running transparently. that is just the industry best actress. they will not have to send any extra reminders using best actresses. dr. atkinson, isn't it already industry best practice that location apps run in a way that they are transparent t

it will presumably include geolocation.ll four of us are chained, not because we have called each other, but because we are sitting next to each other with our cell phones. overseas, the nsa is using things like address books and i am missing a few, to do the same type of contact chaining. assume they might try to do that. that should alarm everyone, that we are approving it blind and not understanding what connection contact chaining is. >> this raises a big picture question. what kind of surveillance policy ought we to have? one feature of it ought to be that you could sit down with a rim of educated people and explain to them what the government can do and what the limits are that the government can do. have it become principal to them. i do not -- have to be comprehensible to them. >> are you saying i was not comprehensible? [laughter] >> one of the reasons marcy's haveis indispensable, i covered this extensively. she lays something out as clearly as anybody can lay it out. it will take me three times reading it to unde

just like phone metadata, this geolocation data with time stamps can be used to reconstruct intimate details of our lives. who we visit, where we worship, from whom we seek counseling and how we might legally and legitimately protest the actions of our own government. this language expands upon the prohibitions already adopted under previous map 21 re-authorizations, preventing federal funds from being used to purchase cameras for purposes of traffic law enforcement. despite this prohibition, transportation grants can still currently be used to purchase cameras that collect and store plate data, even when no crime has been committed. certain highway safety grants within this bill can be used to purchase traffic monitoring stmings that we seay long highways -- systems that we seay long highways. this would not stop the purchases of such traffic monitoring cameras, it would only prohibit cameras that have he ability and -- ability of storing the license plates of innocent americans. citizens of each state should have the opportunity to decide the question. but citizens of one state who

so in summary, we think the geolocation offers many opportunities for innovation and i think regulation at this point is premature. but again, i commend you, senator, for your leadership on the criminalization of the stalking apps, which are a serious problem and will help with that. thank you. >> thank you, dr. atkinson. ms. southworth? >> good afternoon, chairman franken and distinguished members. i'm representing our member, the minnesota coalition for battered women and i work with the arizona coalition against domestic violence and the connecticut coalition. in fact, all 56 coalitions. i founded the safety net technology project in 2002 to support survivors, train police and work with policymakers on thoughtful innovation. we work closely with many technology companies, including verizon, google. we serve on the facebook safety advisory board. since 2002, we have presented over 900 trainings to more than 65,000 practitioners. my colleagues are with me today. and i want to say for the record that we love technology. we affectionately think of ourselves as the geeks of the domestic v