Federal data privacy laws gain support in US Congress, but critics
remain
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[June 26, 2024]
By Moira Warburton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A drive for the United States' first major data
privacy legislation has bipartisan support in the divided Congress ahead
of a House of Representatives committee hearing on Thursday, though it
faces criticism from businesses and privacy advocates.
The American Privacy Rights Act, cosponsored by Democratic Senator Maria
Cantwell and Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, sets a
national data privacy standard that would allow people to request access
to and delete their data held by companies, and opt out of targeted
advertising. It would also create a national data broker registry.
The U.S. lags other countries and alliances in creating such
protections. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation,
which many experts consider the gold standard for data privacy, has been
in effect since 2018.
A coalition of industry groups - including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
and TechNet, an advocacy group representing tech CEOs - sent a letter to
Rodgers and Cantwell in early June arguing the proposed federal
legislation lacks safeguards that would prevent individual U.S. states
from adding their own restrictions on top of the national policy.
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"The key is to get a single unified national standard without enabling
states to regulate on top of the national standard," said Jordan
Crenshaw, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's
Technology Engagement Center.
As it stands, "we are seeing deficiencies that would effectively make
this bill a national floor," Crenshaw said, upon which states could
layer their own data privacy requirements.
Privacy advocates argue the opposite - that the bill would block states
from responding to emerging technology.
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![](../images/062624PIX/news_p31.jpg)
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell speaks during a Senate Commerce,
Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on President Biden's
proposed budget request for the Department of Transportation, on
Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2022. REUTERS/Michael A.
McCoy/File Photo
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"Federal legislators are getting pushed to the table because of all
this regulation that's happening at the state level," said Mario
Trujillo, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
digital civil liberties nonprofit. "If you take away the state law,
in 20 years there's not going to be this groundswell of pressure."
Privacy experts argue that federal pre-emption could negate the
"California effect" - a phenomenon where California, the country's
biggest state by population, spearheads regulations that are adopted
by other states and the federal government over time.
"Setting anything into amber is a net negative for everyone, given
the rate at which technology is emerging," Ashkan Soltani, executive
director of the California Privacy Protection Agency, said in an
interview.
Democratic Representative Suzan DelBene, who represents a Washington
state district including parts of Seattle, where Amazon.com and
other tech giants have their headquarters, said she supports the
bill.
"Right now we have a patchwork of state laws that makes it
untenable, especially for small businesses, to be able to keep up,"
DelBene said.
The bill will get a markup hearing on Thursday, a key step before
legislation can advance to the House floor for a vote.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone
and Matthew Lewis)
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