Video Privacy Protection Act Amendments Act of 2012

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6671) to amend section 2710 of title 18, United States Code, to clarify that a video tape service provider may obtain a consumer's informed, written consent on an ongoing basis and that consent may be obtained through the Internet.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 6671, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today I am pleased that we are considering a bipartisan bill to update the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988. This bill will ensure that a law related to the handling of videotape rental information is updated to reflect the realities of the 21st century.

The VPPA was passed by Congress in the wake of Judge Robert Bork's 1987 Supreme Court nomination battle, during which a local Washington, D.C., newspaper obtained a list of videotapes the Bork family rented from its neighborhood videotape rental store. This disclosure caused bipartisan outrage, which resulted in the enactment of the Video Privacy Protection Act.

The commercial video distribution landscape has changed dramatically since 1988. Back then, the primary consumer consumption of commercial video content occurred through the sale or rental of prerecorded videocassette tapes. This required users to travel to their local video rental store to pick a movie. Afterward, consumers had to travel back to the store to return the rented movie. Movies that consumers rented and enjoyed were recommended to friends, primarily through face-to-face conversations. With today's technology, consumers can quickly and efficiently access video programming through a variety of platforms, including through Internet protocol-based video services, all without leaving their homes.

This bill is extremely similar to H.R. 2471, which passed the House overwhelmingly a year ago. This newer version incorporates provisions suggested by the Senate that allows greater consumer flexibility in their video sharing habits. I support these enhancements to the bill.

This bill updates the Video Privacy Protection Act to allow videotape service providers to facilitate the sharing on social media networks of the movies watched or recommended by users. Specifically, it is narrowly crafted to preserve the VPPA's protections for consumers' privacy, while modernizing the law to empower consumers to do more with their video consumption preferences, including sharing names of new or favorite TV shows or movies on social media in a simpler way. However, it protects the consumer's control over the information by requiring consumer consent before any of this occurs, and it makes clear that a consumer can opt in to the ongoing sharing of his or her favorite movies or TV shows without having to provide consent each and every time a movie is rented.

It also makes clear that written affirmative consent can be provided through the Internet and can be withdrawn at any time. The bill we are considering today requires that the consent be distinct and separate from any other form setting forth other legal and financial obligations. Companies must provide consumers with the clear and conspicuous option to withdraw their consent to share at any time. Finally, a consumer's consent to share expires after 24 months unless the consumer chooses to opt in again.

This bill is truly pro-consumer and places the decision of whether or not to share video rentals with one's friends squarely in the hands of the consumer. In fact, the cochairs of the Future of Privacy Forum correctly pointed out, in an opinion piece in Roll Call on November 29, 2011, that ``the antiquated law on the books is a hindrance to consumers.''

This legislation does not change the scope of who is covered by the VPPA or the definition of ``personally identifiable information.'' In addition, it preserves the requirement that the user provide affirmative, written consent.

It's time that Congress updates the VPPA to keep up with today's technology and the consumer marketplace. This bill does just that. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this important piece of legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to thank both the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), for his longtime support, as well as the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), who I'm sure will have a word to say about this as well, and also the work that the gentleman from North Carolina, the ranking member of the subcommittee that I chair--and he has done a good job as the ranking member on--for working with us to find ground here that we could reach agreement upon.

I will also say that I have a great interest in looking at the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and other privacy issues that need to be reviewed and modernized, and I hope that, in my new capacity as chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the next Congress, we'll have the opportunity to work together on issues of that nature.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank my colleagues for coming together on this legislation. I believe that it is very good legislation that modernizes the use of the Internet and the use of information that people want to share with each other. It makes it feasible to do that now in ways that newer users of the Internet have become used to with music and other things they share, and now they'll be able to do that with video, television, and movies and other things like that.

So I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, we are enacting legislation to update the Video Privacy Protection Act, VPPA, in order to permit the ongoing sharing of video viewing information via the Internet. This bill contains important digital privacy provisions that I authored in the Senate to ensure consumer control over video viewing information.

During my more than three decades in the Senate, I have worked to protect the privacy rights of American consumers. In doing so, I have joined with Democrats and Republicans alike to help guarantee the right to privacy for every citizen. Last month, the Judiciary Committee favorably reported legislation that included these video privacy updates with strong bipartisan support. I commend Senator Franken for his exceptional work on this measure as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Technology, Privacy and the Law. He held

the hearings and helped the committee to develop the proposal contained in this bill.

I congratulate Representative Goodlatte for his work on this bill. He began the effort in the House to update the VPPA and has worked with me to reach this final product. I look forward to working with him to update another critical digital privacy law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, ECPA, in the new year. The Senate Judiciary Committee reported a good proposal to ensure a warrant requirement for e-mails and we should move forward quickly to enact it.

The bill we enact today takes several important steps to accommodate new technologies, like video streaming and social networking, while also helping to protect digital privacy rights in cyberspace. First, the bill updates the Video Privacy Protection Act to keep pace with how most Americans view and share videos today--on the Internet. This bill will allow American consumers, if they wish, to share their movie and television watching experiences through social media, while also ensuring that the important privacy protections in this law are not diminished.

Second, to protect the privacy of American consumers, the bill retains key privacy protections already in the VPPA which require that consumers ``opt-in'' to the sharing of their video viewing information. The bill similarly retains the requirement in current law that consumers provide informed written consent to share video viewing information. Moreover, to ensure that consumers have control over their own video viewing data, the bill provides that consumers may ``opt-in'' to the information sharing on an ongoing basis for a period of up to 2 years at a time. Consumers may ``opt-out'' of the information sharing at any time.

Lastly, the bill requires that the opportunity for a consumer to withdraw consent to the disclosure of video viewing information must be presented in a clear and conspicuous manner. This provision requires a video tape service provider to provide one of two opportunities for the consumer to withdraw consent: on a case-by-case--i.e., per title-- basis, or to withdraw consent for ongoing disclosures. The bill does not, however, specify where on a Web site, or in what form, the opportunity to withdraw consent should be provided.

Like many Americans, I am concerned about the growing and unwelcome government intrusions into our private lives in cyber space. Last month, the Judiciary Committee overwhelmingly passed my legislative proposal to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, ECPA, to require a search warrant in order for the government to obtain our e- mail and other electronic communications stored with third-party service providers. When we worked to enact ECPA in 1986, no one could have imagined the way the Internet and mobile technologies would transform how we communicate and exchange information today. But, after three decades, this critical privacy law has been outpaced by the explosion of new technologies and the expansion of the government's surveillance powers.

My Electronic Communications Privacy Act updates would revive and enhance the privacy protections afforded to Americans' e-mails and other electronic communications by establishing a warrant requirement for all e-mail content when stored with a third-party service provider or ``in the cloud.'' There are limited exceptions to this requirement under current law. I have worked to make certain that these updates carefully balance privacy interests, the needs of law enforcement, and the interest of our thriving American tech sector.

When the Congress enacted the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in 1986, we did so with strong, bipartisan support. Today, we continue that long and proud tradition of coming together across Chamber and party affiliation by enacting this update to the VPPA. My legislative reforms to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act are likewise deserving of such broad and bipartisan support. I urge us to join together in the Congress to enact these important privacy updates without delay.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6671. Last year, I came to the floor to oppose the predecessor bill to this legislation, which we in the House passed and sent to the Senate. But today, I rise to support the amendments to the Video Privacy Protection Act contained in the bill because of important amendments to the bill that have been made in the Senate.

I said when we debated the bill before, and I say now, that while I support innovation on the Web, I do not support it at the expense of consumer privacy. I believe the Senate amendments make for a strong bill, with more robust consumer protections, and respond, in many respects, to the concerns I raised about the prior bill.

The Video Privacy Protection Act was passed in reaction to the unauthorized release of Judge Robert Bork's rental history during his contentious confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court and stands today as the gold standard for privacy protection.

The amendments made by this bill would allow a video service provider to obtain universal, ongoing electronic consent from consumers to share their viewing history across social media like Facebook. The consumer would have to affirmatively opt in, and the service must provide a clear and conspicuous opportunity to withdraw the consent to share video viewing information at any time. Finally, advance consent may be valid for no longer than 2 years.

Mr. Speaker, I'm satisfied that the amendments made in the Senate, before which I testified in opposition to the original bill, have adequately addressed the privacy-related concerns I expressed.

Opt-in consent is widely regarded by privacy advocates as a vigorous protection for consumers. The requirement that the consumer must revisit the decision to share his video history reinforces the protections provided in the initial consent.

And finally, the bill now allows what I suggested during the Judiciary Committee markup in the House, that the consumer be provided the option to give consent on a video-by-video basis, or in advance for all views until that consent is withdrawn, or until the expiration of 24 months.

Because of these important changes, I support the chairman in his effort to assist online companies to initiate creative options on behalf of their subscribers. While these are welcome improvements that allow me to support this bill, I remain concerned that the bill fails to provide needed updates to the Video Privacy Protection Act, in particular, and fails to consider implications for the ongoing national debate on privacy laws governing digital privacy.

I continue to believe that the underlying Video Privacy Protection Act must be updated to address destruction of records in the online environment. Also, the damages provision should be updated to ensure that consumers are adequately compensated when harmed and that online companies are not unfairly penalized because of the reach of their media.

Finally, I firmly believe that the provision in the Video Privacy Protection Act that requires a warrant for law enforcement to obtain consumer records must be preserved and that future debates on electronic consumer privacy reforms must not undercut those protections.

I understand that the incoming chair of the Judiciary, my good friend, Mr. Goodlatte, agrees with most of these observations and will work with me to ensure that the Judiciary Committee, next year, tries to address some of these concerns.

So, Madam Speaker, my concerns are not so much about what's in this bill as much as they are concerns about what is not in the bill. So I'm agreeing not to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

I, therefore, ask my colleagues to join me in supporting the bill, but I also ask them to join me, in the next term of Congress, to protect consumer privacy and to update the outdated provisions of the Video Privacy Protection Act.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers.

I yield such time as she may consume to a valued member of our Intellectual Property Subcommittee and a valued member of the Judiciary Committee, the gentlelady from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting the bill and working with us next year to address the things that are not in the bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 6671 makes a minor, overdue change to update the Video Privacy Protection Act. I thank the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Goodlatte, for sponsoring this commonsense, bipartisan legislation.

The Video Privacy Protection Act prohibits video stores from disclosing certain ``personally identifiable information'' of their customers.

In the event of an unauthorized disclosure, an individual can sue in civil court for damages. But the law has always allowed some personally identifiable information to be released in limited circumstances, such as in response to a court order or when the customer gives their prior, written consent.

However, the technologies of entertainment are changing. Today, consumers are just as likely to stream a movie from the Internet as they are to rent a movie from a video store. And when people view entertainment on the Internet, often they like to share their activities with friends through social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Under current law, the social media sites would have to obtain written consent each time someone wishes to share their video choices.

H.R. 6671 does not change the prohibition on disclosure of personal information or expand the exceptions when information can be disclosed. It does not change the requirement for informed, written consent by a consumer. It simply allows the consumer to consent once before using new social media programs to share their movie or TV show preferences.

An earlier version of this bill passed the House last year, by a vote of 303 to 116. In the Senate, two amendments were adopted to make the bill even more consumer friendly. This new version adopts these amendments to accommodate concerns about consumer choice and privacy.

H.R. 6671 adopts an amendment proffered in mark-up by Congressman Nadler, which requires the consumer consent agreement to be in a completely separate form apart from the other contract details.

In addition, H.R. 6671 adopts two Senate amendments that place limitations on how consent is obtained from consumers. The bill now limits the disclosure agreement to 2 years.

The bill also requires the video provider to give consumers easy options to end the sharing agreement. These changes will ensure that consumers are aware they are sharing information and are voluntarily taking part.

Rather than dramatically alter the Act's existing provisions, H.R. 6671 keeps the vast majority of the Act in place and simply modernizes the way in which consumers can give their informed consent. This bill brings the Video Privacy Protection Act into the 21st century. And the changes adopted made from the previous bill increase consumer protection from the beginning of the process to its end.

I again thank my colleague from Virginia, the Chairman-Elect of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Goodlatte, for his work on this important issue. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I would like to let everyone know that the gentleman from North Carolina, who's worked on this and has pledged to continue to work on it, has my support for the new ideas. Well, they're not new. They're old ideas that just didn't get into this bill. And we're going to work on it together.

I congratulate, of course, the chairman-elect of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Goodlatte, for his long work and service on that committee and look forward to joining with him to continue the kind of bipartisanship that frequently is worked out in our committee.

I believe this amended version of H.R. 6671 is a distinct improvement over its predecessor and urge that we continue the kind of vigilance that the gentleman from North Carolina, Mel Watt, has demonstrated in his zeal to protecting consumer privacy. Technology is constantly evolving. Each new development presents new opportunities and challenges to improve our lives. This bill is a good step toward addressing this technological development, and we must continue to monitor it to ensure consumer privacy continues to be protected.

The language added by the Senate, the other body, improved the bill for consumers, and so I, too, urge my colleagues to support its passage today.