Momentum builds for national privacy law

The specter of dozens of privacy bills moving through state legislatures this year may push Congress to pass its own legislation this year, despite doubts about lawmakers’ willingness to act.

The legal landscape on privacy is changing quickly, with the 21st Century Privacy Coalition, a lobbying group representing telecommunications carriers, counting 94 privacy proposals pending in state legislatures across the United States as of late February, coalition co-Chairman Jon Leibowitz told a Senate committee. States are following the lead of California, which passed its own consumer privacy law in 2018 in response to the data collection and sharing practices of large Internet companies.