Greetings from Portsmouth, New Hampshire!

We have crested into the third month of self-quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the passage of time has been, quite frankly, rather odd. The last two weeks of March felt as though they lasted approximately 37 years. It felt as though the calendar was stuck in molasses AND quicksand. On the flipside, April and May have been flying by, at least for me. This month is already halfway over! On a good day, I can say “at least we are one day closer to the end of this thing.” On the tougher days, the light at the end of the tunnel is blocked by traffic. All any of us can do is take it one day at a time.

At the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 obviously dominated the headlines in privacy. Over the last couple of weeks, however, pandemic news has “somewhat” settled into an area where it is one of the major topics of any given day.

The California Privacy Rights Act is an example of a notable non-COVID-19 news story, as the Californians for Consumer Privacy are working to qualify for the November 2020 ballot. In case you missed it, IAPP Research Director Caitlin Fennessy offered up what could be the top-10 most impactful provisions in the CPRA. We also released a corresponding infographic. 

Also notable, the Court of Justice of the European Union tweeted this week that the so-called "Schrems II" decision will come down July 16. This is a massively significant decision that could have consequences for standard contractual clauses and the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield arrangement. 

We're also seeing movement in Congress on addressing COVID-19 and data protection. The Democrats this week proposed the COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act. This comes after a group of Republicans released their version more than a week ago. My colleague Joe Duball has more on this in his report below. 

On a more uplifting note, the IAPP launched Summit Sessions this week. The sessions are a suite of virtual presentations from privacy professionals and features select programming from the IAPP Global Privacy Summit, as well as Data Protection Intensive: UK, Canada Privacy Symposium and others.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the IAPP’s conference schedule in 2020, as it has for so many others, but hopefully you'll find these sessions informative and thought provoking.