AFSA Expresses Concerns with APRA
Today, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee held a hearing titled “Legislative Solutions to Protect Kids Online and Ensure Americans’ Data Privacy Rights.” During this hearing, the subcommittee considered the discussion draft of the “American Privacy Rights Act” (APRA). In advance of the hearing, AFSA sent a letter to the Chairs and Ranking Members of the full committee and the subcommittee to express concerns with the bill as drafted. AFSA proposed that the APRA be amended to include a provision that clearly exempts all GLBA-regulated institutions at an entity level. This will avoid unnecessary and conflicting requirements that could lead to an interruption in the consumer data practices already in place.
Additionally, the APRA’s proposed enforcement system will allow for different judicial interpretations of the law. AFSA is concerned that this will only encourage an increase in trivial lawsuits or time-consuming class action suits. AFSA appreciates the importance of national privacy standards. Under private right of action, however, states will eventually have different privacy protections based on their judicial interpretations. To avoid further fracturing national privacy laws and encouraging time-consuming, inconsequential lawsuits, the letter asked that the enforcement provision of APRA be amended.
April 17th, 2024
