It’s Time for Congress to Act on Privacy

Momentum is building for consumer privacy rights from coast-to-coast:

California passed its landmark privacy law in 2018. Virginia and Colorado passed their own legislation earlier this year. And 20+ other states are considering their own privacy laws too.

But to ensure those privacy rights are comprehensive, fair, and applied equally to everyone, it’s time for Congress to act too. It’s time to guarantee consumer privacy to every American.

Until now, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has emerged as the de facto national standard. But it’s not enough: Based on Confidently’s experience executing CCPA privacy requests for our customers, we’ve seen that most (but not all) companies are responding to delete and do-not-sell requests for Californians. And many companies (but far from all) are responding to privacy requests from non-Californians.

In short, the CCPA has provided a solid baseline for consumer privacy rights in the United States -- but far more must be done. 

Every American deserves the same privacy rights, including: 

• The right to know what data companies have collected on them
• The right to delete their data from companies that shouldn’t have it
• The right to stop companies from selling their personal data, and 
• The right to be compensated for negligent data breaches.

But that will only happen when Congress acts.

The good news is, multiple bipartisan bills have emerged in Congress, and – unlike other areas of business and tech regulation – there is broad agreement on the contours of this potential privacy legislation.

Those privacy bills include:

• The Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act (COPRA), introduced by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
• The SAFE DATA Act, introduced by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-AL)
• The Data Protection Act, introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
• The Mind Your Own Business Act and Protecting Americans’ Data From Foreign Surveillance Act, introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)
• The Fourth Amendment is Not For Sale Act, introduced by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ron Wyden (D-OR)

While there is broad agreement on the key principles of future privacy legislation, there are two main sticking points:

• Will the federal privacy law be enforced by a federal agency (the FTC or a new data privacy agency) -- or will it be enforced by allowing consumers to bring lawsuits against offending companies (right to private action)?
  
  
• Will the federal privacy law preempt state laws in CA, VA, CO, and others -- or will it serve as a common national standard that other states can build upon?

At Confidently, we hope Congress acts swiftly to resolve these open issues and give consumers strong, consistent data privacy protection nationwide.

But we’re not waiting for Congress to act:

Want to start taking back control of your personal data, all across your digital footprint? Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Confidently’s data privacy subscription service right now!