Congress should pass digital privacy bill crafted by WA leaders

If this is the year Americans finally gain control over what happens to their digital data, they’ll have two longtime Washington lawmakers to thank.

Last Sunday, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, unveiled a bipartisan compromise that would establish data privacy as a consumer right. The leaders of powerful committees — Cantwell as chair of Senate Commerce and McMorris Rodgers, her equivalent on House Energy and Commerce — believe the American Privacy Rights Act has a shot to pass in divided government and survive in a dysfunctional era of Congress.

Their efforts are the best chance at the federal level to give consumers rights over the use of their personal data and limit what companies can collect and do with it — a cause with many backers on Capitol Hill. With McMorris Rodgers’ pending retirement at the end of this year, it’s also their last opportunity to try and push the legislation over the finish line.

The heart of their compromise appears to be the right of consumers to sue when companies violate digital privacy, something supported by Cantwell, and the act’s power to eliminate a confusing patchwork of state laws and establish federal standards on rules and protections, insisted on by McMorris Rodgers. The pair said in a statement the legislation “strikes a meaningful balance on issues that are critical to moving comprehensive data privacy legislation through Congress.” Whatever their differences, lawmakers from both parties should embrace this chance to protect consumers while reining in Big Tech.

There is even industry support for the comprehensive bill, improving its chances and credibility. Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft, voiced support for the bill on X, saying it “would give all consumers in the U.S. robust rights and protections,” and “provide clarity by establishing a national standard.”

Currently, a patchwork of state laws is all that exists for digital privacy protection across the country.

In 2019, Washington lawmakers crafted legislation that has served as a model for 14 other states that have passed their own laws. Though the measure passed in the Senate, it died in the House.

The collection of Americans’ personal data through the internet and smartphones has spawned a multibillion-dollar industry, where troves of information are bought and sold without users’ knowledge. The results are chilling.

For instance, a Duke University research team recently found brokers selling sensitive health records, financial information, religious practices and location data of U.S. active-duty service members — at a price as low as 12 cents per person.

In another example, the Federal Trade Commission accused an Idaho company of selling data sets of consumers they categorized in “content taxonomies,” including “pregnancy,” “cancer,” and “special needs kids.” The company spelled out in marketing materials its disturbing use of geolocation to find out where people live: “by looking at the resting lat(itude)/long(itude) of a given (smartphone) device between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.” 

Cantwell and McMorris Rodgers’ bill would finally flip the current model of consumers’ interactions with tech companies from an “opt-out” model to an “opt-in” form of data collection. Currently, signing up for an app, for instance, often involves lengthy legalese that leads to “consent fatigue,” with most consumers having little to no idea what data they’ve surrendered. Under the draft legislation, companies would be required to minimize their collections to data germane to the transaction — for example, a ride-hailing company’s ability to use a customer’s geolocation wouldn’t go beyond the time when a driver is finding them for pickup. This is what consumers expect, and this proposed bill delivers. 

The legislation is not a cure-all. McMorris Rodgers and Cantwell are promoting separate legislation that creates online protections specifically for children. Their new privacy act is not a part of legislation mandating the sale of TikTok from its Chinese ownership, which recently passed the House but has not yet been aired in the Senate. And increasingly powerful AI models escape most of the scope of the new act.

But the bill goes far in giving consumers power over their data and the ability to hold companies accountable if they misuse it. Other lawmakers should join Cantwell and McMorris Rodgers in supporting it.