The White House’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board recently came out with its annual report, which details its organization, operations, and recent work.

I was pleased to see that it has adopted a structured approach to analyzing privacy and related issues (see pages 24–25). Its approach is quite similar to the one adopted in the Framework document created by the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. (Well, I’ll put a finer point on it: the Privacy Board report acknowledges and thanks me and the committee. It’s very nice to be singled out, of course, but the Framework document was the product of many minds, eyes, and hands from the DHS Privacy Committee.)

This doesn’t mean the White House Privacy Board has gotten everything right, of course. I have no doubt that they could have done better. But it is very important progress to see a group like this committing to an organized, structured thought process. Doing so facilitates the discussions that lead to improved, better understood, and more widely agreeable outcomes.