ADPPA Helps Protect Civil Rights for All Americans

Today, The Hill published an op-ed from the Future of Privacy Forum’s (FPF) Senior Policy Counsel for Data, Decision Making, and Artificial Intelligence Bertram Lee. The piece highlighted that privacy, particularly in the context of digital services, electronic data flows, and personal data, is a civil right.

Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to advance the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA). If passed, the bill would enact the first national standard for privacy. In its current form, ADPPA would modernize civil rights for the digital age and update existing civil rights protections.

“What is at stake is bigger than the interests of individual states: it affects the lives of a majority of Americans,” Lee said in the piece. “State laws, including the California Privacy Rights Act and laws passed in Colorado, Utah, Connecticut, and Virginia, typically codify existing civil rights laws, but to date have not extended civil rights protections. The U.S. needs a law that will implement clear and meaningful civil rights safeguards.”

Read the full piece here.