The investigation was requested in an open letter by representatives of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) and Junkbusters Corp., a company that offers services to limit ‘junk communications’.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy is alleged to have used cookies to monitor user activity on a particular web site in breach of the White House privacy policy and the Privacy Act 1974. In addition, the letter to Congress demands investigation into the use of tracking devices by other federal agencies because, according to Marc Rotenberg, executive director of EPIC, “monitoring citizens’ use of government web sites raises profound privacy and constitutional concerns”.
Doubleclick, the company that provided the cookie technology used by the US government, has also come under fire, with privacy advocates demanding that all data collected relating to individuals’ use of drug-related sites be destroyed. However, Doubleclick has defended its role in the incident by stating that “no personally identifiable data about visitors were given to the government”.