On August 19, 2020, the California State Assembly on Appropriations ordered to a second reading Assembly Bill (“AB”) 1281, which would extend the exemption of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) in relation to employee information and business-to-business (“B2B”) transactions until January 1, 2022.  Specifically, AB 1281 would exempt information collected about a natural person

  1. Details about Apple/Google Launch

Yesterday (May 20, 2020), Apple and Google launched software that will allow public health authorities to create mobile applications that notify people when they may have come in contact with people who have confirmed cases of COVID-19, while purportedly preserving privacy around identifying information and location data. People who have updated

Today, Senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced the Public Health Emergency Privacy Act (“PHEPA”) into the Senate. A companion house bill was introduced by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Suzan DelBene (D-WA), which was co-sponsored by Reps. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), G.K. Butterfield (D-NY), and Tony Cárdenas (D-CA).   This and similar

On May 1, 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced House Resolution 6666, the COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone (“TRACE”) Act.  The resolution, sponsored by Bobby Rush (D-IL) would authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants to eligible entities to conduct diagnostic testing for COVID-19 to trace and monitor the

As they had previously announced their intent to do so,  the leadership of several Senate Committees introduced the “COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act” on May 7, 2020.

The Act would:

  • Require companies under FTC jurisdiction to obtain affirmative express consent from individuals to collect, process, or transfer their personal health, device, geolocation, or proximity information

On April 30, 2020, U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, John Thune (R-SD) chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, Jerry Moran (R-KS), chairman of the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security, and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN),  announced plans