It's becoming increasingly clear the U.S. House of Representatives knows what it wants to do in regards to federal privacy legislation — the only certainty that's shown up in this fast-moving legislative process is the House's willingness to work across the aisle and press forward. This unity and desire mostly showed through again Thursday as the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce unanimously voted to move the American Data Privacy and Protec... Read More

There is a clear desire among the co-sponsors of the American Data Protection and Privacy Act to demonstrate substantive progress on the text based on stakeholder feedback, including last week’s hearing. This desire is apparent in the most recent version, which has now been introduced as a bill in the House of Representatives as H.R. 8152. As the IAPP covered, yesterday the bill was reported favorably to the full Energy and Commerce Committee after a markup session in the subcommittee on Consume... Read More

Tuesday's much-anticipated federal privacy law hearing hosted by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce had a different vibe than what onlookers have become accustomed to when Congress discusses privacy matters. Past hearings — they've come in waves at the same time of year over the last three-or-so years — brought clear divides, separate agendas and no consensus among lawmakers on how to arrive at a solution. The proposed American Data P... Read More

On Tuesday, June 14, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on the American Data Privacy and Protection Act discussion draft — a leading contender for a comprehensive federal privacy framework. The famed sticking points of individual redress mechanisms, preemption of state laws and the role of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission — the law’s likely federal enforcer — were among the slew of debated aspects. However, the cybersecurity provisions and data security requirements ... Read More

As the policy community takes time to absorb and reflect on the substantive provisions of the draft American Data Privacy and Protection Act, it is worth exploring the basic scope of application of the bill. What organizations would be expected to comply? How do obligations differ based on size or function in the data economy? The ADPPA presents a somewhat complex array of organizational roles, with different names than privacy professionals may be used to. For example, what’s the difference bet... Read More

On May 20, 2022, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission staff made a remarkable statement on an agency blog: “In some instances, the FTC Act creates a de facto breach disclosure requirement because the failure to disclose will, for example, increase the likelihood that affected parties will suffer harm.” The blog, signed by the agency’s Team CTO and its Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, is both momentous and frustrating. Momentous because it purports to recognize a breach notification requ... Read More

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission fined Twitter $150 million for using account security data for targeted advertising, in violation of a 2011 order. The FTC said Twitter asked for user phone numbers and email addresses to protect accounts, then allowed advertisers to use the data, affecting 140 million users. In addition to the fine, Twitter is banned from profiting from deceptively collected data, must notify users the data was misused, and implement and maintain a privacy and information secur... Read More

There has been curiosity about how long it would take the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to delve into privacy matters once it had a full bench of commissioners and a Democratic majority. The answer took only three days as the agenda for the first public session following the swearing in of Alvaro Bedoya as the fifth and final FTC commissioner led off with a privacy vote. Surprisingly, FTC Chair Lina Khan did not see a party line vote on this first action with the full bench as commissioners vot... Read More

After of a series of delays during the confirmation process, the U.S. Senate approved the nomination of Georgetown University law professor Alvaro Bedoya to fill the remaining commissioner vacancy on the Federal Trade Commission. Bedoya’s confirmation now gives Democratic appointees a 3-2 majority on the FTC’s Board of Commissioners.  In a statement released by Georgetown University Law Center on Privacy and Technology, Bedoya said he is excited to work with his fellow commissioners and "truly ... Read More

A report from researchers at the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology claims U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has used private data brokers to access hundreds of millions of Americans’ personal information, The Verge reports. Through public records and collected data, the report says ICE has built a surveillance system with limited oversight. Georgetown Law Policy Associate Nina Wang said ICE has “built up a sweeping surveillance infrastructure that’s capable of tracking almos... Read More