Engineers and computer scientists are crucial to the future of consumer privacy, FTC Commissioner Julie Brill said Wednesday at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (http://1.usa.gov/1ce7U1y). The data collection process is error-prone, outdated and not consumer friendly, Brill said. These are “your challenges,” she told the academic audience. It’s a call to arms, “or given who you are, a call to keyboard,” she said. With the proliferation of data and tracking through the booming number of connected devices, entrepreneurs have the opportunity to help ensure consumer privacy, Brill said.

The private sector is now the “supported command” when it comes to cybersecurity, said a lawmaker, former intelligence officials and a cybersecurity expert during a Tuesday panel. And the U.S. government must support it, they said. The private sector is a main target of cyberattacks, yet remains vulnerable and exposed, the panelists said during the Center for Strategic and International Studies event. Only by passing information-sharing legislation, reforming its security clearance procedure and educating industry stakeholders can the U.S. government confront “the most serious national threat facing the United States,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich.

The EU should suspend the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program in response to the U.S. National Security Agency’s alleged tapping of EU citizens’ banking data held by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system, the European Parliament said Wednesday. It approved a nonbinding resolution backed by the Socialists and Democrats, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and Greens/European Free Alliance. A resolution from the center-right European People’s Party that urged caution on suspending the TFTP (CD Oct 18 p9) wasn’t successful. Privacy International (PI), meanwhile, asked the U.S. Treasury, NSA and European privacy chiefs to address concerns that the TFTP is failing to protect Europeans’ personal data or to give them redress for violations.

A new code of conduct for in-store data collection via consumers’ mobile devices is a positive step for consumer privacy, but contains major loopholes and enforcement concerns, said privacy advocates, lawmakers and industry analysts interviewed Tuesday. The Future of Privacy Forum -- backed by many location analytics groups -- and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., unveiled the new code (http://bit.ly/1cbMan9) in Manhattan’s Columbus Circle Tuesday. No retailers have signed on to the code. Introducing in-store signs alerting customers to the tracking technology in use and providing opt-out instructions are at the code’s core. Some privacy advocates balked at the default opt-in for some data collection and the code’s limited reach, saying these issues were best handled through legislation.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology released the preliminary version of the Cybersecurity Framework Tuesday, meeting skepticism from some cybersecurity experts. Early reaction from industry groups praised NIST’s inclusion of industry in the framework’s development, but the groups said they needed to review the framework more thoroughly. NIST had said it wanted to release the new version for public comment as soon as possible since it missed its original Oct. 10 deadline because of the government shutdown. NIST said it believes it will be able to meet the February deadline to release a final version of the framework.

The links and routers that comprise the Internet can get congested, but if network operators manage network resources properly, they can reduce that congestion, said a Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) study released Tuesday (http://bit.ly/19sp3Qx). The key, the authors said, is following best practices to effectively manage the “bursty” demand Internet users put on the system -- even as network operators have to estimate demand sometimes years in advance, and it may take months to implement a capacity upgrade.

A moratorium on taxation of Internet access should become permanent, said CTIA and the Internet Tax Freedom Act Coalition that includes NCTA, NTCA, T-Mobile, Amazon and many other companies. The current moratorium, extended three times since 1998, is to expire Nov. 1, 2014, unless proposed legislation to make it permanent is passed. The state taxes that would take effect if the moratorium expired would mean higher prices for Internet access, which would hurt the growth of the wireless industry and price out lower-income customers, said CTIA Vice President-Government Affairs Jot Carpenter at an Institute for Policy Innovation event Tuesday.

Broadcast lawyer John Hane warned Tuesday that the incentive auction could fail if the FCC doesn’t get things right. “There are many, many, many paths to failure and only a fairly narrow set of paths to success,” said Hane of Pillsbury Winthrop during a panel at an Institute for Policy Innovation conference.

There’s no stopping the transition to IP-enabled services, and the FCC needs to step up its game, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President-External and Legislative Affairs James Cicconi plans to tell the House Communications Subcommittee Wednesday. According to written testimony (http://1.usa.gov/16sWLlM), he will emphasize consumer demand for wireless and IP-enabled services, which he will tie to the virtues of the IP transition that AT&T has urged the FCC to focus on. Stakeholders will debate before the subcommittee what principles and timeline should accompany this transition.

State broadband conferences will focus on adoption trends rather than catering to service providers, said conference leaders in Michigan, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming on Tuesday. Three of the four conferences are sponsored in part by NTIA’s State Broadband Initiative that funds programs for mapping and adoption purposes. Community broadband, technology action plans, healthcare technology and data centers are to be discussed at the conferences.