2022 Data Privacy Day – An Update On Where The Laws Stand

Well, it's Data Privacy Day, and it would be great to be able to report that the federal legislature has finally agreed on a comprehensive federal data privacy law – but alas, that has not happened. Like so many other legislative initiatives, it comes down to a matter of the legislators not being able to agree. It seems that the two primary issues of dispute are (a) whether the federal law should preempt state privacy laws, and (b) who will enforce the law. At present California, Colorado and Virginia have enacted comprehensive data privacy laws on a state level, and many other states, including New York and Massachusetts, are considering their own versions of a privacy law. The challenge with the patchwork of state privacy laws is that each state's law differs from the others, sometimes in material respects, making compliance with every applicable law time consuming and costly. For example, the bill pending in the Massachusetts legislature goes beyond existing state