The Federal Trade Commission is a law enforcement agency tasked with protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive practices. Protecting consumers on the Internet and from bad tech is nothing new for the FTC. We will take a look back at what the FTC was doing when DEF CON first began in 1993, and what we've been doing since. We will discuss enforcement actions involving modem hijacking, FUD advertising, identity theft, and even introduce you to Dewie the e-Turtle. Looking forward, we will talk about the FTC's future protecting consumers' privacy and data security and what you can do to help.
Whitney Merrill is a hacker, ex-fed, and lawyer. She's currently a privacy attorney at Electronic Arts (EA), and in her spare time, she runs the Crypto & Privacy Village (come say hi!). Recently, she served her country as an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission where she worked on a variety of consumer protection matters including data security, privacy, and deceptive marketing and advertising. Whitney received her J.D. and master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. @wbm312
Terrell McSweeny serves as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. This year marks her fourth time at DEF CON . When it comes to tech issues, Commissioner McSweeny has focused on the valuable role researchers and hackers can play protecting consumer data security and privacy. She opposes bad policy and legislative proposals like mandatory backdoors and the criminalization of hacking and believes that enforcers like the FTC should work with the researcher community to protect consumers. She wants companies to implement security by design, privacy by design and data ethics design - but recognizes that, in the absence of regulation, enforcement and research are the only means of holding companies accountable for the choices they make in the ways that they hold and use consumer data. @TMcSweenyFTC