2022 was a big year for data privacy in the U.S., with many states passing or considering data privacy legislation and the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) nearly passing both chambers of Congress. Had it been successfully passed, it would have been the U.S.’s first national data privacy act, superseding the many state-level provisions. With 2022 in the rearview mirror, it’s time to look ahead to what awaits us for data privacy in 2023. Five new laws at the state level are coming into effect this year, including CPRA that will supersede CCPA. Over the coming days, we’ll take a look at each one and review how they affect the data privacy landscape.
Many of the core tenets are shared by each state-level data privacy law coming into effect in 2023 and also should be comparable to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in many regards. Though the language varies from statute to statute, each law requires certain consumer rights regarding data privacy to be honored by businesses and data controllers in these states. These rights include the right to access their personal data, the right to correct inaccuracies in their personal data (excluding the Utah Consumer Privacy Act), the right to delete their personal data, the right to a copy of their data, the right to opt-out of the sale of their personal data, and the right to opt-out of targeted advertising.
Additionally, data controllers subject to these statutes will be required to provide consumers a privacy notice detailing how they handle personal data. In all of the 2023 laws, UCPA data controllers will be required to detail their data retention schedules along with their purpose for retaining such data. All of the 2023 data privacy statutes will also require data controllers to implement and maintain reasonable security controls to protect consumers personal data. Again, these will vary from statute to statute, but their inclusion will help to protect consumers’ sensitive personal data.
Our 2023 State Data Privacy Laws series will look at the requirements in each statute, along with how each statute varies from another. The similar, familiar core to these data privacy laws should make general compliance manageable. However, there are some tedious edge cases that will only get more complicated as new data privacy laws pass across the nation. Sooner or later, there will be a need for a simplified nation-wide data privacy law like we almost saw passed in 2022. While we don’t know whether 2023 will build on what the ADPPA started, states certainly won’t wait for Congress to act on data privacy.