Tech Industry Wary Of Federal Data Privacy Law Pushed By Bipartisan Congress

Those in the tech industry, along with privacy advocates, are heavily criticizing a bipartisan effort in Congress to push for the United States' first major data privacy legislation, ahead of Thursday's House of Representatives committee hearing.

Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell and Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers co-sponsored the American Privacy Rights Act. This act will set a standard for national data privacy, allowing individuals to request access to data held by companies and even have their data deleted. The proposed legislation also provides an option to opt out of targeted advertising and establishes a national data broker registry.

Since 2018, the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been used and is considered by experts to be the "gold standard" in data privacy.

Rodgers and Cantwell received a letter from a consortium of industry groups regarding the proposed legislation. The group, comprised of TechNet and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, argued in early June that the proposed legislation lacks necessary safeguards to prevent individual U.S. states from adding their own restrictions to the national policy, Reuters reported.

"The key is to get a single unified national standard without enabling states to regulate on top of the national standard," stated Jordan Crenshaw, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Engagement Center.

Currently, "we are seeing deficiencies that would effectively make this bill a national floor," Crenshaw added.

Privacy advocates argue the contrary, saying the bill would hinder states from responding to new technologies.

Mario Trujillo, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, "Federal legislators are getting pushed to the table because of all this regulation that's happening at the state level."