Why Congress Should Pass Data Privacy Legislation in 2022

Data privacy legislation has been on the Congressional to-do list for years, but as more states consider their own comprehensive privacy laws and Europe’s privacy regulation approaches its fifth anniversary, the federal government continues to lag behind. Due in large part to partisan divides and an unwillingness to compromise, Congress has repeatedly missed its deadlines to produce a bipartisan bill. This comes at high costs to consumers and businesses, and it threatens America’s standing as a leader in the digital economy.

As Ashley Johnson and Daniel Castro write in The Hill, federal legislation is necessary to prevent the United States from becoming a patchwork of 50 different state laws, which would make enforcement more costly and impose unnecessary barriers to innovation in the digital economy, which runs on personal data.