Across the United States, evolving data collection and processing practices and advances in artificial intelligence are driving new digital services, technologies, and socially beneficial research – while also raising new opportunities, risks, and questions for individuals and communities. In response, state and federal policymakers are considering new legislative and regulatory frameworks on three interconnected fronts: comprehensive consumer privacy laws that establish baseline rights and protections for personal data across the economy; frameworks that target specific sectors and practices such as automated decisionmaking, biometric identification, companion chatbots, data-driven pricing, data brokerage, frontier AI model safety, genetic data, and health data; and youth-specific privacy and online safety laws that set distinct rules for minors. These three tracks rarely stay in their lanes: a comprehensive privacy law may include AI provisions, an AI safety bill may carve out rules for minors, a youth online safety law may hinge on biometric age verification. Understanding the landscape requires understanding both the individual pieces and how they fit together.
FPF’s U.S. Legislation team provides expert, independent, pragmatic analysis of state and federal legislative and regulatory approaches to privacy, AI, and youth online safety – three distinct but increasingly intertwined issue areas. The team tracks emerging proposals, compares new laws against existing frameworks, analyzes implementation and compliance implications, and helps policymakers and stakeholders understand how legal requirements interact with current technologies, business practices, and data uses.
Through reports, blog posts, legislative and policy analyses, webinars, in-person and virtual peer-to-peer gatherings, and educational programs, FPF helps the broader technology policy and governance community understand the mechanisms and strategies available to protect privacy, promote responsible AI development and deployment, and advance youth online safety. FPF does not typically support or oppose particular bills. Instead, the U.S. Legislation team focuses on explaining the practical and legal implications of proposals – individually and as they interact with one another. This work helps ensure that privacy, AI, and youth safety compliance and policy strategies remain future-looking, adaptable, and workable for the continued, beneficial use of data and AI.
FPF’s U.S. Legislation team is led by Tatiana Rice, Senior Director.
What the Biden Executive Order on Digital Assets Means for Privacy
Author: Dale Rappaneau Dale Rappaneau is a policy intern at the Future of Privacy Forum and a 3L at the University of Maine School of Law. On March 9, the Biden Administration issued an Executive Order on “Ensuring Responsible Developments of Digital Assets” (“the Order”), published together with an explanatory Fact Sheet. The Order states […]
FPF at the 2022 IAPP Global Privacy Summit
Last week, IAPP held its first in-person annual Global Privacy Summit in Washington, DC since 2019! Through expert panels and our expo booth, FPF remained active during this two-day conference, with our CEO Jules Polonetsky holding a conversation with FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips, our data privacy experts speaking and providing their expert analysis at the […]
FTC Requires Algorithmic Disgorgement as a COPPA Remedy for First Time
On March 4, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement agreement with WW International and its subsidiary, Kurbo (Kurbo by WW), after charging the companies with violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) for improperly collecting health information and other data from children as young as eight years […]
Utah Consumer Privacy Act Passes State Legislature
This week, the Utah legislature passed the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (SB 227). If enacted by Governor Spencer Cox, Utah will follow California, Virginia, and Colorado as the fourth U.S. state to establish a baseline regime for the protection of personal data. The law would come into effect in December 2023. “While the Utah Consumer […]
Privacy Harms, Global Privacy Regulation, and Algorithmic Decision Making are Major Topics During Privacy Papers for Policymakers Event
For the 12th year, the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) hosted its Privacy Papers for Policymakers event, honoring the 2021 Privacy Papers for Policymakers Award winners. This year’s event featured an opening keynote by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and facilitated discussions between the winning authors – Daniel Solove, Ben Green, Woody Hartzog, Neil Richards, […]
BCI Commercial and Government Use: Gaming, Education, Employment, and More
This post is the third in a four-part series on Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), providing an overview of the technology, use cases, privacy risks, and proposed recommendations for promoting privacy and mitigating risks associated with BCIs. Click here for FPF and IBM’s full report: Privacy and the Connected Mind. In case you missed them, read the […]
The State of Play – Issue Brief: COPPA 101
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), enacted by Congress in 1998, aims to give parents more control over the information collected about their children online. The law requires operators of games, websites, apps, and other online services catered to users under the age of 13 to obtain permission from a child’s parent before collecting information about […]
Five Burning Questions (and Zero Predictions) for the U.S. State Privacy Landscape in 2022
Entering 2022, the United States remains one of the only major economic powers that lacks a comprehensive, national framework governing the collection and use of consumer data throughout the economy. An ongoing impasse in federal efforts to advance privacy legislation has created a vacuum that state lawmakers, seeking to secure privacy rights and protections for […]
Addressing the Intersection of Civil Rights and Privacy: Federal Legislative Efforts
Last month, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) hosted virtual listening sessions on the intersection of data privacy, equity, and civil rights. Around the same time, the FTC announced that they will begin rulemaking on discriminatory practices in automated decision making, and currently, an influx of state legislation containing civil rights provisions have been […]
Overcoming Hurdles to Effective Data Sharing for Researchers
In 2021, challenges faced by academics in accessing corporate data sets for research and the issues that companies were experiencing to make privacy-respecting research data available broke into the news. With its long history of research data sharing, FPF saw an opportunity to bring together leaders from the corporate, research, and policy communities for a conversation […]