Internet privacy expert to speak on Instagram controversy at Photo Committee lunch meeting Wednesday, Jan. 30

Marc Rotenberg, co-founder and executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), will speak about on privacy issues affecting photography on the Internet at a lunch meeting of the Club's Photography Committee at noon Wednesday in the McClendon Room.

Rotenberg’s talk is titled, "Photography, Privacy, and the Internet.” All Club members and their guests are welcome. No reservations are required.

In a highly publicized deal last year, Facebook purchased the wildly-popular Internet photo-sharing and social networking service Instagram for a reported price of $1 billion. Instagram, launched in October 2010, had 100 million users at the time of the sale. In December, several months after the deal closed, Instagram updated its terms of service asserting the right to sell users’ photos to third parties without notice or compensation. The announcement stirred up a storm of controversy by users, legislators and privacy advocates. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, commenting on the new terms of use put it starkly, “A picture is worth a thousand words; posting one to Instagram should not cost you your privacy.”

Marc Rotenberg is one of best-known experts on Internet privacy. In addition to being director of EPIC, Rotenberg teaches information privacy law at Georgetown University Law Center and has testified before Congress on many issues, including access to information, encryption policy, consumer protection, computer security, and communications privacy. Before joining EPIC, he served as counsel to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is the author or editor of several books, including Privacy and Human Rights and Privacy and Technology: The New Frontier.

EPIC was founded in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values. Its activities include privacy research, public education, conferences, litigation, publications and advocacy.