U.S. Legislation

On March 24, the FPF hosted “Dark Patterns:” Manipulative UX Design and the Role of Regulation. So-called “dark patterns” are user interface design choices that benefit an online service by coercing, manipulative, or deceiving users into making unintended or potentially harmful decisions. The event provided a critical examination of the ways in which manipulative interfaces can […]

By Srivats Shankar, FPF Legal Intern For the 14th annual Computers, Privacy and Data Protection conference, which took place between 27 and 29 January, 2021, FPF hosted a panel of experts to discuss “US Privacy Law: The Beginning of a New Era”, whose recording has just been published. The panel was moderated by Dr. Gabriela […]

Statement by Future of Privacy Forum CEO Jules Polonetsky regarding the approval of the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act: “Today, Governor Ralph Northam signed the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA), making Virginia the second state, following California, to establish baseline legal protections for consumer privacy – a significant milestone in the United States. The […]

Stacey Gray, Pollyanna Sanderson & Samuel Adams In the absence of federal privacy legislation, U.S. states are weighing in. In Virginia, the “Consumer Data Protection Act” (“CDPA”) (HB 2307 / SB 1392) could be signed into law within weeks, and if passed, would take effect on Jan. 1, 2023. If the law passes, it would […]

With more than 30 bills filed in the United States Congress since 2018 to regulate privacy with overwhelming support from the public, it looks like the US might be going through a ‘privacy renaissance’. This week, FPF Senior Counsel Dr. Gabriela Zanfir-Fortuna’s article, “America’s ‘privacy renaissance’: What to expect under a new presidency and Congress,” […]

The Future of Privacy Forum released a new policy brief, Location Data Under Existing Privacy Laws.  Defining and regulating location data in a privacy law can be an elusive challenge. In part, this is due to its ubiquity in our lives: information about how devices and people move through spaces over time is utilized by Wi-Fi […]

Today, the Brookings Institution released model legislative findings for federal privacy legislation, intended to accompany the model privacy legislation they published in June, 2020. The findings are designed to motivate discussion and to reconcile differences between two of the leading proposals: Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-WA) Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act and Sen. Roger Wicker’s (R-MS) SAFE DATA Act. The legislative findings also […]

Authors: Stacey Gray, Senior Counsel, Katelyn Ringrose, Christopher Wolf Diversity Law Fellow at FPF, Polly Sanderson, Policy Counsel, and Veronica Alix, FPF Legal Intern Despite a day of election uncertainty, November 3, 2020 produced an important moment for privacy legislation: California voters approved Proposition 24 (the California Privacy Rights Act) (CPRA) (full text here). Garnering 56.1% of the vote so far, […]

By Katelyn Ringrose, Christopher Wolf Diversity Law Fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum, and Christopher Wood, Executive Director of LGBT Tech, with thanks to Connor Colson, FPF Policy Intern.  LGBTQ+ rights are, and have always been, linked with privacy. Over the years, privacy-invasive laws, practices, and norms have been used to oppress LGBTQ+ individuals […]

Although the Commission stated that the revisions “don’t raise new policy issues,” companies collecting or managing data from children under 13 should be aware of several significant changes and clarifications to the FAQs.