Battle lines forming ahead of a looming US privacy law fight
Rachel Lerman and Tali Arbel | The Associated Press01/17/19, 00:20
FILE - This Jan. 28, 2015, file photo, shows the Federal Trade Commission building in Washington. Consumer advocates and the data-hungry technology industry are drawing early battle lines in advance of an expected fight over a national privacy law. Privacy organizations on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2019, suggested sidelining the Federal Trade Commission with a new data-protection agency empowered to police U.S. industry. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Privacy advocates are calling for a new federal agency to oversee consumer data privacy. The organizations’ plan would sideline the Federal Trade Commission and strengthen digital privacy protections for U.S. citizens.
In contrast, a D.C. think tank backed by technology companies is advocating for all federal privacy plans to be rolled back in favor of a new national law. The plan from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation would still allow companies to collect many kinds of data.
The opposing plans are early signs of a battle to come this year over what federal privacy legislation should look like. Many senators and privacy experts are calling for a broad federal law after Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal last year and continuing data missteps at big tech companies.
FILE – In this Nov. 10, 2016, file photo, people walk near a Microsoft office in New York. Consumer advocates and the data-hungry technology industry are drawing early battle lines in 2019 in advance of an expected fight over a national privacy law. (AP Photo/Swayne B. Hall, File)FILE- In this April 18, 2018, file photo, a graphic from the Cambridge Analytica website is displayed on a computer screen in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)FILE – This Tuesday, July 19, 2016, file photo shows the Google logo at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)FILE- In this March 29, 2018, file photo, the logo for Facebook appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York’s Times Square. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)FILE – In this Aug. 6, 2015 file photo, FaceBook Elections signs stand in the media area at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, before the first Republican presidential debate. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
