Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On August 25, 2020, Hunton’s Centre for Information Policy Leadership (“CIPL”) released a new paper entitled “Data Protection in the New Decade: Lessons from COVID-19 for a US Privacy Framework.” The paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the need for a U.S. federal privacy law.

It also highlights seven key takeaways from the pandemic to consider when developing this new law:

1. Data and the technologies that facilitate its collection and use are an essential part of our lives.
2. A federal privacy law must not impede the responsible use of artificial intelligence technology.
3. The right to privacy must be balanced with other fundamental rights.
4. Traditional interpretations of data protection principles have proven insufficient to keep up with modern data uses.
5. Privacy laws should focus less on the collection of data and more on the use of data after collection.
6. Privacy laws should embrace an accountability and risk-based model of data protection.
7. Comprehensive federal privacy legislation, as opposed to state-by-state regulation, is the best approach to ensuring privacy protections in the United States.

CIPL also has posted a summary of the paper on its blog, A Very CIPL Solution.