Record #: O2017-3920   
Type: Ordinance Status: Failed to Pass
Intro date: 5/24/2017 Current Controlling Legislative Body: Joint Committee: Economic, Capital and Technology Development; Finance
Final action:
Title: Amendment of Municipal Code Chapter 4-4 by adding new Section 4-4-340 to be known as "Mobile Phone Privacy Awareness Act"
Sponsors: Burke, Edward M., Hairston, Leslie A.
Topic: MUNICIPAL CODE AMENDMENTS - Title 4 - Businesses, Occupations & Consumer Protection - Ch. 4 General Licensing Provisions
Attachments: 1. O2017-3920.pdf
Related files: R2019-362
ORDINANCE x <\
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago ("City") is a home rule municipality as described in Section 6(a) of Article VII of the 1970 Constitution ofthe State of Illinois; and

WHEREAS, pursuant to its home rule power, the City of Chicago may exercise any power and perform any function relating to its government and affairs including the power to regulate for the protection of the public health, safety, morals, and welfare; and

WHEREAS, as technology permeates our lives, so do concerns over the privacy protections afforded to Chicagoans; and

WHEREAS, as a Federal Trade Commission-published article acknowledged, designers of the operating systems upon which we increasingly base our routines, "are balancing trade-offs between functionality, convenience, privacy, and security;" and

WHEREAS, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in a 2016 Privacy and Data Security Update, reports that it has initiated over forty general privacy lawsuits including one against a foreign-based mobile advertising company charged with deceptively tracking the locations of "hundreds of millions of consumers - including children - without their knowledge or consent" in geo-targeted advertising; and

WHEREAS, unlike instances in which users knowingly avail themselves of location-dependent services such as global positioning devices (GPS), or willingly offer up their location information, such as when "checking in" at a restaurant through a mobile device application ("app"), other location data collecting instances are far less obvious; and

WHEREAS, the popularity and utility of Location Based Service applications and "smart" phones and devices for numerous daily functions such as navigating traffic, finding the nearest restaurant or gas station, or even getting tailored retailer discount offers, promises an enduring tension between privacy and convenience; and

WHEREAS, for instance, in 2016, the ubiquitous ride-sharing Uber application began requiring access to user location i...

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