Patchwork Penalty: The Hidden Toll of State Privacy Laws

A number of states, including California, Virginia, and Colorado, have recently passed data-protection laws that will impact businesses across the United States. In the absence of congressional action, many more states are likely to follow suit in the coming years, creating a patchwork of competing and potentially contradictory data-protection regulations that will confuse consumers, inflict high compliance costs on organizations, and impose unnecessary constraints on the digital economy.

ITIF hosted a discussion of a new study on the economic impact that a patchwork of state privacy laws will likely have on U.S. businesses, the key criteria Congress should consider in future federal data-privacy legislation to minimize these costs, and the opportunity for the United States to embrace an innovation-friendly data protection framework that protects consumers while streamlining regulation.

Questions for the panel? Ask on Slido.