Under Secretary for International Trade

U.S. Department of Commerce

14^th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20230

Draft Safe Harbor Privacy Principles

 Dear Ambassador Aaron:

Cable & Wireless hereby submits the following Comments regarding the March 14, 2000, Draft International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles ("Safe Harbor Principles") issued by the Department of Commerce ("the Department").

Cable & Wireless plc, headquartered in the United Kingdom, has been a world leader in developing and providing integrated communications around the world for over 125 years. The company is the world's fourth largest carrier of international telecommunications traffic, and serves 17 million customers in over 70 countries. Cable & Wireless owns and operates one of the world's largest Internet backbone networks in the United States, and provides telecommunications services to thousands of small and medium sized businesses.

Cable & Wireless recognizes and respects the importance of data privacy, and indeed, could not succeed in the communications industry without ensuring the privacy of its customers. As a company headquartered and doing business in Europe, Cable & Wireless takes its obligations under the Directive very seriously.

Cable & Wireless fully supports the Safe Harbor Principles, and commends the Department for its diligence in adopting a self-regulatory, and largely opt-out approach to the regulation of privacy data. In order to ensure that the Safe Harbor Principles are clear, provide reasonable means for compliance, and will be properly enforced, Cable & Wireless urges the Department to address the issues described below in the final draft.

  Enforcement Jurisdiction

It is Cable & Wireless' understanding that U.S. companies complying with the Safe Harbor Principles are subject to enforcement by U.S. administrative and judicial authorities only, except with regard to human resource data or companies choosing to cooperate with Data Protection Authorities. Cable & Wireless is concerned, however, that the Safe Harbor Principles could be misinterpreted to subject companies to enforcement in multiple jurisdictions by different authorities for the same alleged violation, particularly with regard to companies with operations in both the United States and the European Union ("EU").

Cable & Wireless urges the Department to ensure that companies are not vulnerable to this situation. The Department should amend the Safe Harbor Principles to clearly state that U.S. companies complying with the Safe Harbor Principles are subject to enforcement by U.S. administrative and judicial authorities only, except with regard to human resource data or companies choosing to cooperate with Data Protection Authorities.

CPNI

The Department should include an explicit statement in the Safe Harbor Principles that compliance with Section 222 of the Communications Act, which protects proprietary information, provides safe harbor benefits to common carriers. Although the Tenth Circuit has held that the rules promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission under the Communications Act (i.e. the Customer Proprietary Network Information rules) violate the First Amendment, this does not affect the constitutionality of the statute itself. Rather, the statute continues to be valid and enforceable.

Cable & Wireless notes that the Department has removed Footnote 3 from its November draft Safe Harbor Principles, which referenced the Tenth Circuit's decision. However, to ensure that there is no confusion, the Department should include a footnote in the Safe Harbor Principles stating that to the extent common carriers comply with Section 222 of the Communications Act, the carriers are a fortiori in compliance with the principles. Should the Department not be willing to do so, Cable & Wireless restates its understanding that this is so.

Verification

Cable & Wireless reiterates its previous comment that the standard for a consumer's access to a company's verification statement should be the same as that for a consumer's access to information. Specifically, FAQ 7 should be amended to include the reasonableness and balance conditions contained in FAQ 8, the Access Principle. Outside of the context of an investigation or a complaint, an organization should be able to balance a request for a verification statement with the burden and expense of such a request, and be permitted to deny unreasonable requests.

Onward Transfer and Agents

Cable & Wireless submits that the Onward Transfer Principle, as applied to agents, imposes unnecessary procedural burdens on companies, without providing any additional privacy benefits. The second sentence in footnote 1 of the Safe Harbor Principles states that the Onward Transfer Principle applies to disclosures of information to an agent. Accordingly, before providing personal information to its agent, a company must ascertain whether the agent subscribes to the Safe Harbor Principles or is subject to the Directive or another adequacy finding, or include language in its contract with the agent that the agent must provide at least the same level of privacy protection as that required by the Safe Harbor Principles. If a company follows these procedures, it is not liable for transfers of information by the agent which violate the Safe Harbor Principles, unless the company had reason to know the agent would violate the principles.

The second sentence in footnote 1 is totally unnecessary because U.S. companies are already so obligated. Under basic tenets of principal/agency law in the United States, a principal is liable for the acts of its agent within the scope of the agent's employment. Accordingly, irrespective of the obligations imposed by footnote 1, a company would be deemed liable for any violation of the Safe Harbor Principles by its agent. Cable & Wireless urges the Department to delete footnote 1 from the Safe Harbor Principles, since it is unnecessary, and does not provide any additional benefit to an individual's privacy.

 Respectfully Submitted,

Cable & Wireless

 By:_____/S/________________

Cathy Slesinger

Paul Kenefick

8219 Leesburg Pike

Vienna, VA 22182