New FTC Provides Insights Into Its Plan For A Balanced Approach To Data Privacy And Security

This year brought unprecedented focus on consumer privacy – the rollout of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Cambridge Analytica controversy and Congressional hearings, a GDPR-light law coming out of California, more and bigger security incidents, and multiple proposals for an omnibus federal data protection law. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) under the Obama Administration was active in calling for, and advancing, greater privacy protection for consumers, as well as authority for itself, and late in its tenure went so far as to push its unfairness authority into the realm of privacy. We have been anxiously waiting for the newly reshaped Commission to articulate its worldview on consumer privacy and data security. Earlier this month, the FTC provided a detailed outline of its approach and strategy to data protection in a Comment responding to a Request for Comment made by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National