Draft Of A U.S. Federal Privacy Bill Could Arrive In 2019

The European Union’s strict General Data Protection Regulation offers great data protection to users and makes companies liable to penalties if they don’t comply or misuse consumer data. The United States doesn’t have similar legislation but that could change in the future. The draft of a federal privacy bill is expected to arrive by early next year. It could provide GDPR-like data protections to users in the country.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal is working with Republican Jerry Moran on a bipartisan federal privacy bill. Reuters reports that the draft of this bill could be put up by early 2019. The subcommittee working on this bill met yesterday but reportedly did not reach a consensus on the draft language as yet.

The legislation that has been proposed would expand data protections for users in the United States. It would also allow the government to collect civil penalties from companies that don’t comply, misuse user data or don’t do enough to protect it from theft.

There has been a lot of talk about having such legislation in the United States after multiple high profile privacy breaches this year that exposed the data of millions of American users. Apple CEO Tim Cook is one of the most vocal advocates for GDPR-like regulations in the United States.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General