Though the FTC is supposed to ensure “transparency and accountability,” it has fallen short during President Donald Trump’s second term, ex-Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said during a "people's oversight" hearing hosted Wednesday by Public Knowledge. Another former FTC official during Trump's first term, Bilal Sayyed, said the agency's decline began during the Biden administration and has continued.
The leaking of several documents Friday that apparently are a draft of the European Commission's digital simplification package, including GDPR reform, prompted mixed reactions from privacy professionals and advocates.
Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform (DROP) rules will take effect Jan. 1, the same day that the accessible deletion platform goes live, the California Privacy Protection Agency announced at the CalPrivacy Board’s meeting Friday. Also at the meeting, CalPrivacy General Counsel Philip Laird walked the board through a presentation on how consumers and data brokers will interact with DROP.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said Monday the key to successful regulation of AI includes having a light touch that respects innovation, but also being mindful of protecting children.
Privacy and AI-focused state lawmakers will meet with congressional offices next week to discuss legislative priorities, Virginia Del. Michelle Lopes Maldonado (D) told us in an interview Friday. For 2026, she expressed interest in updating Virginia’s comprehensive privacy law and regulating AI chatbots with Democrats now in full control of the legislative and executive branches after Tuesday's election.
California's Oct. 30 settlement with Sling TV reinforced that regulators are focused on opt-out processes and children’s data, while revealing that they are looking more closely at how privacy choices influence the consumer experience, privacy lawyers said afterward.
California Privacy Protection Agency legislative staff is closely watching potential preemption efforts on Capitol Hill while developing possible bills to tighten the California Consumer Privacy Act in its home state’s legislature, said an agency official during the CalPrivacy Board’s meeting Friday. The proposed bills would add whistleblower protections, require alternative methods for submitting consumer privacy requests and expand California’s deletion right to cover all personal information collected about a consumer.
The California Privacy Protection Agency is exploring possible rulemakings in the categories of employee data, opt-out preference signals (OOPS), disclosures and notices and reducing friction exercising consumer privacy rights, CalPrivacy staff told the board at its Friday meeting. Unlike with the previous rulemaking package on automated decision-making technology and other subjects, the agency plans to “present more targeted recommendations addressing only one or two policy issues at a time,” said General Counsel Philip Laird.
Focusing on trends can be a helpful way for health care companies to anticipate coming privacy laws and future compliance needs, said Kyle Rene, Whiteford Taylor lawyer, at a Health Care Compliance Association event Wednesday.
Illuminate Education failed to use basic security measures to protect student data, which led to a breach affecting millions of children, attorneys general from Connecticut, New York and California announced Thursday in a $5.1 million settlement with the education software company.