Greetings from Portsmouth, New Hampshire!

It has been another busy week for privacy here in the U.S. In California, the deadline for any additional amendments to be introduced to the California Consumer Privacy Act was Sept. 6 with the Legislature expected to adjourn Sept. 13. In an article for Privacy Tracker, DLA Piper’s Jim Halpert and Andrew Kingman broke down the changes to technical corrections (AB 1355) and loyalty programs bills (AB 846). To exemplify the rapidly changing landscape of the amendment process, we learned shortly after publication that AB 846 has been shelved for the year but may be introduced again next year. Not long after, AB 1355 passed the State Senate. The governor now has until Oct. 13 to sign existing amendments into law. Angelique Carson sat down with CCPA co-architect Mary Stone Ross to discuss the latest updates in latest episode of The Privacy Advisor Podcast.

On the other side of the country, the U.S. government has been holding the third annual joint review with EU officials of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield program. “Privacy Shield is the foundation of the $7.1 trillion economic relationship between the United States and Europe,” the White House said in a news release Sept. 11. In an effort to show compliance, FTC Chairman Joseph Simons touted the record-breaking FTC fines handed down this year for privacy violations, as well as “misrepresentations related to the Privacy Shield and similar frameworks.” Simons also pointed out that “since the last review, the FTC has brought seven new actions enforcing the Privacy Shield framework, bringing our total to fifteen Privacy Shield cases. We brought five actions this year for ‘false starts’ —companies that begin signing up with the framework, do not complete the process, yet continue to claim participation.”

Today, EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers, and Gender Equality Věra Jourová and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said, “EU and U.S. officials both stressed the need for strong and credible enforcement of privacy rules to protect our citizens and ensure trust in the digital economy. … As provided for in the Framework, the Department of Commerce will revoke the certification of companies that do not comply with Privacy Shield's vigorous data protection requirements.”

In other news, a coalition of CEOs has asked Congress for to pass a “comprehensive consumer data privacy law” that would preempt state privacy laws. CEOs from Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, Walmart and others wrote in an open letter to Congress, “Consumer trust and confidence are essential to our businesses. We are committed to protecting consumer privacy and want consumers to have confidence that companies treat their personal information responsibly.” Will that happen this year? Probably not, but calls from industry are increasing, so it’s worth keeping an eye on.

Have a good weekend!