Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On November 1, 2018, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) released a draft bill, the Consumer Data Protection Act, that seeks to “empower consumers to control their personal information.” The draft bill imposes heavy penalties on organizations and their executives, and would require senior executives of companies with more than one billion dollars per year of revenue or data on more than 50 million consumers to file annual data reports with the Federal Trade Commission. The draft bill would subject senior company executives to imprisonment for up to 20 years or fines up to $5 million, or both, for certifying false statements on an annual data report. Additionally, like the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the draft bill proposes a maximum fine of 4% of total annual gross revenue for companies that are found to be in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act.

The draft bill also proposes to grant the FTC authority to write and enforce privacy regulations, to establish minimum privacy and cybersecurity standards, and to create a national “Do Not Track” system that would allow consumers to prevent third-party companies from tracking internet users by sharing or selling data and targeting advertisements based on their personal information.

Senator Wyden stated, “My bill creates radical transparency for consumers, gives them new tools to control their information and backs it up with tough rules.”