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Article

28 Jan 2019

Author:
Sang Ah Kim, Access Now

Commentary: In the absence of a comprehensive federal privacy in the USA, state & local govts. offer important legal protections

"Taking it to the states: Access Now supports digital rights at the state level in the U.S.," 28 Jan 2019

State-level protections can give us much-needed human rights safeguards, change the existing legal landscape, or even stir legislative movement at the federal level. For example, in the absence of a comprehensive federal privacy law in the U.S., state and local governments are now offering important legal protections against harmful data practices that jeopardize our rights on a daily basis... [T]ech companies have successfully lobbied against a comprehensive federal regime for many years, favoring an approach based on “self regulation.” This approach has led to the systematic and unrelenting abuse of users’ trust, as our personal information is increasingly exposed, mishandled, and leveraged by malicious actors for manipulation, as underscored by the Cambridge Analytica scandal... [S]tates have also nimbly responded to the gaps in privacy protections created by rapid changes in technology.