The Downside to State and Local Privacy Regulations

According to Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, one of the main issues with stricter privacy regulations is having no centralized rules for states to follow.

“Probably the biggest problem is states setting up a set of contradictory overlapping rules across the country,” Castro said. “This creates a serious cost on organizations and businesses. They can abide by 50 state privacy laws, but there could be different regulations across local jurisdictions.”

One example of a hurdle for organizations and businesses is local jurisdictions creating specific rules for facial recognition and biometric technology.

“Let’s say a company starts selling a smart doorbell service; because of these rules, this service might not be able to be legally sold in one jurisdiction,” Castro said.