What are the benefits of P3P in an regulated environment like the EU?
In a regulated environment like the EU, users have certain rights. This includes not only the right to be notified when data is collected but also the right to access data under reasonable conditions, requirements for informed consent, and so on. To put these rights into effect it would be useful to have software that could help manage flows of information. P3P can help because it is an open standard, and as such could allow many different types of software to interoperate with each other on the web. A second benefit of P3P is that data commissioners in Europe, along with other privacy groups, could come up with recommended privacy preferences that could be shared easily and used by anyone with a P3P-enabled browser. Also, by expressing privacy statements in a simplified, structured format, P3P could assist companies in complying with the EU Data Directive, as well as help data commissioners keep tabs on companies’ practices.
