Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ) have scheduled a press conference to introduce their privacy bill, titled “The Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011,” on Tuesday, April 12. The bill is expected to be the first comprehensive consumer privacy bill to be introduced in the Senate. In March, the Obama administration asked Congress to pass a “privacy bill of rights” requiring companies to give consumers notice about how their data is being used, the choice to opt-out of having their personal data shared for purposes other than which it was collected, and the ability to access the personal data a company has stored about them.
While no details on the final bill were released, earlier drafts contained provisions calling for the FTC to establish rules to require companies to provide consumers with “clear, concise, and timely notice” of how personal data is collected and used, and giving the FTC the power to oversee and enforce those rules.
We will post an analysis of the bill once it is released.
