SIIA, like many others in the tech industry, eagerly awaits a draft privacy bill from the Hill. We support a strong and comprehensive federal privacy law that is designed to prevent and remedy harms, gives consumers meaningful control and access to their personal data, and bars unreasonable data collection and use practices. As we have noted in many fora, how to achieve this will require many sensitive policy decisions, all of which Congress is uniquely poised to decide.

With Congress returned from the August recess, the technology community and consumers nationwide continue to await action on data privacy – namely, legislation that will strengthen and harmonize data privacy protections while promoting continued U.S. leadership in innovation.

“. . . as education companies we can't just come up with a great product, show it to teachers, and expect to be successful. Our products and services have to help decision makers with their state and federal compliance and intricately defined funding requirements if we are going to be successful. If we don’t know what these are, we can’t get our products accepted.”  — Mitch Weisburgh, Managing Partner, Academic Business Advisors

The EU’s sweeping General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect on May 25 but now that it’s here, many companies are finding themselves scrambling even harder than before to make sure they’re in compliance. At a recent joint meeting of Connectiv’s Digital Media and Audience Marketing Councils, six different information companies (including Strategic Insight, Watt Global Media, EnsembleIQ, Brief Media, Northcoast Media and Northstar Travel Group) shared how they got their houses in order—and how they continue to make refinements to their audience data strategies as the realities of GDPR become clearer.

In May 2018, the new European Union (EU) privacy and data security regulations will take effect. These regulations, formally known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), will make many changes from current EU regulations. Even with Brexit, the UK plans to implement the Regulation as well. The challenges can seem daunting, and the stakes are potentially high as the regulators can impose fines for non-compliance as high as 4% of global revenue.

On July 12, 2016, the European Commission adopted the EU-US Privacy Shield, the successor to the 2000 U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework. The Privacy Shield is a critical tool allowing U.S. companies to transfer personal data from Europe to the United States in a way which complies with European laws and regulations. However, there are many details that are important for U.S. businesses to be aware of. 

As the world celebrates Data Privacy Day today, we should collectively explore how to enhance privacy in an era where sharing is abundant and increasingly necessary to provide customers with the many cutting edge innovations they desire.