This morning Richard Salgado, Legal Director of Law Enforcement and Information Security, will testify before a House Judiciary Subcommittee about the need to bring a key privacy law into line with how people use the web today.
The Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations will explore whether to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The 1986 law, known as ECPA, regulates how government agencies can compel companies to disclose information about users.
Richard’s testimony explains that ECPA was a well-intentioned law when passed nearly three decades ago, but it no longer provides the privacy protections that users of these services reasonably expect.
You can read his written testimony and this recent blog post outlining Google’s approach to government requests for user data.