A Grand Bargain on Data Privacy Legislation for America

There is a growing chorus of voices calling for national data privacy legislation in the United States. Not surprisingly, stakeholders have offered competing visions for what such a law should look like. Designing data privacy legislation involves a complex process that must address a wide array of legal and regulatory issues. To help policymakers understand and evaluate these issues, this report compares how different laws and frameworks around the world address various data privacy issues; describes 30 components included in existing laws, frameworks, and legislative proposals; and explains each one’s likely impact on consumers, businesses, and the digital economy. On the basis of this analysis, the report calls for a bold new privacy framework that expands and simplifies consumer data privacy rights, reduces compliance costs from existing state and federal regulations, and paves the way for more data-driven innovation. Specifically, the report calls for comprehensive data privacy legislation to repeal and replace existing federal privacy laws with a common set of protections, preempt state laws, improve transparency requirements, strengthen enforcement, and establish a clear set of data privacy rights for Americans based on the sensitivity of the data and the context in which it is collected.