Year In Review: The Top Ten US Data Privacy Developments From 2024

2024 was another year of substantial legislative and regulatory advances at the international, federal, and state levels with regard to data protection law. Artificial intelligence (AI) regulation continued to hurdle forward with several key advancements, such as the adoption of the European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act ("EU AI Act") and a growing number of state AI bills in the US. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continued to flex its enforcement authority over data privacy and cybersecurity violations, paying special attention to claims companies made about their AI capabilities and other uses of AI the agency alleged to be "unfair." Protecting sensitive data was a main priority for the FTC and the Department of Justice (DOJ)—the former focusing on data brokers' collection of genetic data, consumer web data, and location data, while the latter focused on national security and issues related to US data transfers to "countries of concern." Meanwhile, state