The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has asked the FTC to look more closely at P2P apps—but this time, the worries have nothing to do with copyright.

The committee has a bee in its collective bonnet about the issue of data security, and believes that P2P users across the country are inadvertently leaking private information and financial records into the tubes. Such information could be used for identity theft (and also has national security implications in some cases), and the Oversight Committee wants the FTC to do something.

This isn't the first time the issue has been raised. The FTC actually convened a hearing on the matter back in December, 2004, at which various P2P vendors showed up and pledged their support for an industry Code of Conduct intended to prevent government regulation. That code included principles about making it obvious to consumers which files and folders were being shared.

But a USPTO report earlier this year stirred up the issue again by claiming that P2P installs could adversely affect national security when they made confidential government information available. This has already happened several times, as the Oversight Committee learned in July when it held hearings on the USPTO report and its findings. At that hearing, representatives were also shown real-time P2P search data. While most of the searches were for porn, movies, and music, the committee noted a surprisingly number of searches for private financial information.

The FTC has repeatedly said that it is monitoring the P2P vendors for violations of the Code of Conduct, but that P2P installs are generally as dangerous as other "Internet-related activities," not more so.

The Oversight Committee questions this assessment in its new letter to the FTC, saying, "We have not seen evidence that any of these other 'Internet-related activities' leads to the wholesale information disclosures described at the Committee's hearing." In support of its view, the committee points out that the Justice Department recently prosecuted someone for committing identity theft with information gleaned from P2P networks. Before being caught, the suspect racked up $70,000 in fraudulent purchases. Of course, this sort of thing happens all the time over the web (phishing, anyone?), so the example seems to undermine the basic argument.

The committee wants the FTC to answer five questions about P2P apps, including one about whether the agency needs additional authority from Congress to regulate P2P vendors. If the Oversight Committee gets its way, P2P vendors may not escape government regulation for much longer.