While Congress continues to discuss federal privacy legislation intended to protect consumers, significant disagreements over how to structure such protections have prevented legislation from moving forward. In a new insight, Director of Technology and Innovation Policy Jeffrey Westling explains the need for federal privacy legislation to minimize the impact of a patchwork of often-conflicting state laws.

Key points:

• Many states have passed or are considering privacy legislation that would impose significant costs on businesses trying to comply with these new procedures.
• These costs harm businesses and competition in isolation, but the effects are compounded as a patchwork of differing state laws develop.
• Congress could mitigate this issue by moving forward with a national framework for data privacy.

Read the analysis