Senate Commerce GOP'ers File Privacy Bill to Mixed Feedback
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., led filing Thursday of the Setting an American Framework to Ensure Data Access, Transparency, and Accountability. The Safe Data Act got mixed response the following day. The committee’s privacy legislation talks have been…
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largely at a standstill (see 2003040052). The act would require businesses to increase transparency in consumer data collection practices and let courts grant injunctive relief. It includes many elements of a draft bill Senate Commerce Republicans circulated in November (see 1912030060), including enumerating consumer data rights; language requiring businesses let consumers access, alter and port their data; and a ban on businesses transferring consumers’ data without their consent. Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Deb Fischer, R-Neb., are lead co-sponsors. “While it is encouraging to see the presence of important consumer privacy rights in Sen. Wicker’s bill, it falls well short of providing comprehensive protections of individual privacy rights that are needed,” said Public Knowledge Policy Counsel Sara Collins. It would require "transparency instead of mandating accountability," she said. "Consumers need and deserve better than a federal ‘ceiling’ of lax privacy protections.” It's the result of "work toward ensuring that a federal privacy law gives consumers rights in their personal data and places obligations on businesses to handle that data,” said BSA|The Software Alliance Vice President-Legislative Strategy Craig Albright. Information Technology Industry Council CEO Jason Oxman lauded “meaningful privacy protections, well-defined company responsibilities and consumer rights” and “balanced language addressing both privacy and security, and strong preemption” in the bill. House Commerce Committee Republicans praised Wednesday's coming Senate Commerce privacy hearing (see 2009160075), urging the lower chamber complete work on its own proposal.