As technology increasingly mediates our daily lives, demand for data privacy laws has grown, yet the United States is the only major economy without such a law. In a new insight, Director of Technology and Innovation Policy Nick Krosse discusses the importance of adopting a single federal standard.

Key points:

• In the absence of a single, comprehensive federal framework, states have enacted a patchwork of data privacy laws that increase compliance costs for businesses both large and small.
• The SECURE Data Act is the latest congressional proposal to create a comprehensive federal data privacy standard for consumers in every state, preempting state laws and creating a mechanism to develop industry-specific codes of conduct backed up by Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general enforcement.
• While critics argue the bill offers insufficient protections relative to the strongest state privacy laws, the existing patchwork puts businesses in the position of having to focus on navigating minor differences in state laws rather than protecting privacy; a better approach would be to enact a single federal standard with incentives for industries to adopt stronger codes of conduct backed by government enforcement.

Read the analysis.