Federal Privacy Legislation is a Hot Topic in the US

Consumer Privacy seems to be an urgent topic lately, with the GDPR passage last year, and with many US States passing legislation for consumer privacy protection, with consumer advocate groups and the business community asking for a national privacy legislation, there is a lot of pressure on the US Government to develop a broader national privacy legislation to govern how businesses collect, use, share and protect personal information. The Senate and House of Representatives are holding hearings to discuss the issue. They will be hearing from and considering ideas from the US Chamber of Commerce, Internet Association and The Software Alliance, Google, Microsoft, Apple, consumer advocate groups and others who all support a uniform federal privacy rule. The biggest issue for lawmakers is finding a balance between protecting consumers and businesses’ ability to innovate. Industry and legal groups are hopeful that the hearings will lead to legislation but they understand that there are a lot of issues to discuss and agree upon, including who will enforce, who should be allowed to go after companies who break the rules, how the federal standards would preempt more stringent state regulation, what kind of data will be protected, what companies are allowed to do with consumer data and how much control the consumer has over their data.