Trump administration discussing a US version of GDPR

Dive Brief:

The Trump administration is examining approaches to data privacy in the U.S., in light of the European Union's leadership on the issue through the recently enacted General Data Protection Regulation, Axios reported Wednesday. The administration would like to offset GDPR as the global standard by offering up an American "counter-weight."
Data privacy will face a few more tests, including a state privacy act on the California November ballot initiative, Axios reports. Regulators from the U.S. and Europe will also review Privacy Shield, a framework for transatlantic exchanges of data on citizens, in the fall.
President Donald Trump's special assistant on tech, telecom and cybersecurity policy, Gail Slater, met with members of The Business Roundtable, a technology committee, to discuss options for personal data protection, according to the report. Slater also met with ITIC CEO Dean Garfield. Slater and experts discussed options including executive orders for agencies to create a privacy framework or for a public-private partnership to establish best practices for data protection and privacy.

Dive Insight:

With a lack of clear direction from the federal level on technology issues, from net neutrality to data protection and privacy, states have introduced bills to the technology policy vacuum. For example, 65 net neutrality bills have been introduced across 29 states since the vote to repeal the federal protections. But state action leads to worries among many experts and politicians of a mishmash of regulations between state lines.

In light of data breaches and scandals compromising millions of American consumers' private information, many people are clamoring for increasing consumer protections, a domestic GDPR equivalent and more responsibilities on companies that use, process and sell personal data. Any of these options will likely result in some friction and costs for business that have to update their processes and policies to comply.

Data is the glue of the digital economy, and companies like Facebook and Google have benefited from relatively lax regulation thus far. But as the "techlash" continues a political reckoning will likely come.

Many of the large companies have rolled out GDPR compliance measures for European customers, and these measures could facilitate the compliance journey back home if the U.S. passes its own regulation.