On Thursday, July 11, 2019, a diverse group of trade associations spanning numerous industries, including retail, telecom, manufacturing, and food and beverage, urged Congress to enact a consumer privacy law.  In a letter to the Senate and House commerce committees, the coalition of 27 industry groups asked Congress “to act quickly to adopt a robust and meaningful national consumer privacy bill to provide uniform privacy protections for all Americans.”  The coalition said that a “comprehensive federal privacy law that establishes a single technology and industry-neutral framework for our economy” is necessary because “consumers’ privacy protections should not vary state by state.”  The coalition noted that “a uniform federal framework” would “provide certainty for businesses and consumers alike.”

The coalition’s letter was likely spurred by congressional hearings on data privacy and the growing number of states considering data privacy legislation following the European Union’s implementation of the GDPR.  California Maine, Nevada, and Vermont recently enacted laws governing collection, use, or sharing of consumer data, and similar legislation is pending in Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, and Washington.  Privacy bills introduced in Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, and North Dakota failed to pass but could be reintroduced in upcoming legislative sessions.