The Commerce's department's recommendations regarding revisions to the ECPA and the need for a data breach law area also significant, she said. So too is its call to establish a baseline privacy law based on an expanded set of Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPP), she said.

According to the Commerce department report, the goal of any ECPA revisions should be to ensure a fair balance between individual privacy expectations and law enforcement needs in a changing technology environment. Similarly, any baseline privacy law that is enacted should work in concert with existing state laws and should not preempt them, the report notes.

It also calls for the creation of a privacy policy office to be housed either within the Executive Offices of the President or within Commerce. The office will have new enforcement authority and will serve only to guide industry-specific and multi-stakeholder privacy initiatives.

The Commerce department report was developed by its Internet Policy Task Force. The team includes members from the office of Commerce secretary Gary Locke, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the International Trade Administration, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the TRDaily noted.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .