This past weekend, President Obama and representatives from the other APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) economies endorsed the APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules at their leaders’ meeting in Honolulu. We welcome adoption of the APEC privacy rules and applaud the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for their leadership in this process during the U.S. host year.The APEC cross-border privacy rules is a code of conduct designed to ensure more consistent privacy protections as data moves between different countries within the APEC region. Intel has long stated that there is an urgent need for greater harmonization and interoperability between the multitude of international privacy regimes. We believe that the APEC privacy framework is the prime example of multilateral cooperation efforts on privacy. Since the APEC Ministers endorsed the Privacy Framework in 2004, Intel, along with other U.S. businesses, has supported the efforts of the U.S. government to develop a system that would ensure accountable cross-border flows of information while both protecting consumers and allowing for the benefits of ecommerce.
We congratulate APEC on the adoption of the cross-border privacy rules, and we look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Commerce, the FTC, privacy advocates, our business counterparts, and other APEC economies towards speedy implementation and further discussion of the interoperable nature of the system next year.