Copyright 1999 The Washington Post
The Washington
Post
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March 04, 1999, Thursday, Final Edition
NAME: PETER P. SWIRE
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. E02
LENGTH: 286 words
HEADLINE:
Clinton Names Counselor on Privacy
BYLINE: Robert
O'Harrow Jr., Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
An Ohio State University law professor will begin work next week as
the Clinton administration's chief counselor of privacy,
coordinating policies that govern the use of personal
information by government and industry, administration officials said
yesterday.
The appointment of Peter P. Swire follows a pledge by Vice
President Gore last year to give greater protections to personal data. Swire
will work in the Office of Management and Budget and report to the director of
the agency's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He will be
responsible for coordinating administration initiatives, working with states and
serving as an international contact for privacy matters, agency officials said.
He was selected in part because he is well versed in ongoing discussions
about new privacy regulations adopted last fall by 15 European Union countries.
In October, he and another author published "None of Your Business: World Data
Flows, Electronic Commerce, and the European Privacy Directive."
But
Swire will not replace Department of Commerce Undersecretary David Aaron as
chief negotiator in talks with the EU officials about how U.S. companies can
comply with the EU's strict new rules.
Privacy advocates praised the
appointment, the first of its kind in recent memory, but questioned whether
Swire would have enough clout or financial support to accomplish much beyond
serving as a symbol of the administration's interest in the issue.
"The
bottom line question is: Is it enough?" said Marc Rotenberg, director of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Swire is a specialist in privacy
law. He graduated from Yale in 1985 and became a law professor at Ohio State in
1996.
LOAD-DATE: March 04, 1999
