In an attempt to end-run stricter data privacy regulation the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of America’s largest companies, sent an open letter to the U.S. House and Senate urging the politicians to pass a comprehensive national data privacy law. According to CircleID, the heart of the letter is the creation of federal privacy laws that the companies argue should replace various state-level laws that have already been passed.
The CEOs want one law that governs all user privacy and data protection across the U.S., which would simplify their lives. From the letter:
Now is the time for Congress to act and ensure that consumers are not faced with confusion about their rights and protections based on a patchwork of inconsistent state laws.
Among the items hidden deep in the CEO’s “consumer privacy framework [more here]” are some onerous provisions.
- Private individuals should not be allowed to sue companies if those companies violate the data privacy law itself.
- Potential pay-for-privacy schemes and
- Overriding existing state data privacy protections already signed into law.
The Data Privacy Blog points out that in 2019, a number of states passed new and expanded data breach notification laws, including:
- California.
Illinois,- Maine,
- Maryland,
- Massachusetts,
- New Jersey,
- New York,
- Oregon,
- Texas, and
- Washington.
Also, since July 1, 2019, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Connecticut have enacted laws imposing new cybersecurity requirements on insurance companies.
ZDnet points out that many privacy advocates (and even some tech CEOs) believe the CEOs aren’t really looking after users’ interests, but their own. There’s a belief that companies are trying to aggregate any privacy lawmaking in Congress, where lobby groups can water down any meaningful user protections that may impact bottom lines. Open Secrets reports that the Business Roundtable has spent over $6.6M lobbying in D.C. so far in 2019. As followers of the Bach Seat know, money talk and citizens walk in D.C.
Among the CEOs who were involved in the end run included;
- Amazon
(AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos, and the world’s richest man. - AT&T (T) CEO Randall Stephenson, insider data breach.
- Comcast (CMCSA) CEO Brian Roberts has several data leaks.
- Dell (DELL) CEO Michael Dell is another data leaker.
- FedEx CEO Frederick W. Smith is another firm with a recent data breach.
- JP Morgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon who oversaw a data breach affecting 76m households
- Marriott (MAR) CEO Arne Sorenson oversaw one of the largest data breaches to date.
- Target Brian Cornell CEO of one of the original mega data breachers.
- Walmart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillon, chair of the Business Roundtable and CEO of the largest company in the U.S.
The Data Privacy Blog points out the coincidence that the CEO’s framework comes just months before the California Consumer Protection Act is set to go into effect in 2020.
Followers of the Bach Seat know many companies make money by selling customers’ personal or device-usage data. Privacy policies with too many teeth could prevent companies from selling your data to pay the CEO’s average salary of $17.2M. The LA Times reports that compensation for American chief executives increased by 940% from 1978 to 2018, while pay for the average worker rose only 12% over the same 40-year period.
rb-
Seems to me that the goal of this proposal of the leading CEO’s is not to protect our privacy. Their goal is to centralize the rule-making in the D.C. swamp and throw money at the politicians to do the Business Roundtable’s bidding. Then the CEOs will be able to maintain the status-quo and normalize the existing digital surveillance system that serves them well.
The CEO’s sudden interest in data privacy has more to do with the growing wave of real reform at the state level and the calculation that Trump will be booted from office and less business-friendly POTUS will take his place in 2020. And little to do with citizen’s privacy.
The digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation supports a private right of action for any national consumer privacy law, as such a right would further enable members of the public to fight back against companies that violate the law.
The EFF wrote the best way to protect ordinary people’s privacy is action.
It is not enough for government to pass laws that protect consumers from corporations … to ensure companies do not ignore them … empower ordinary consumers to bring their own lawsuits against the companies that violate their privacy rights.
Signatures from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook were notably absent from the list although both have, in the past, supported a comprehensive federal privacy law.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Mr. Bregman proposes that every day, before leaving the office, save a few minutes to think about what just happened. Look at your calendar and compare what actually happened, the meetings you attended, the work you got done, the conversations you had, the people with whom you interacted, even the breaks you took, with your plan for what you wanted to have happened. Then ask yourself three sets of questions:
