Although the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber) “strongly urges Congress to pass durable, bipartisan national privacy legislation that protects all Americans equally,” it will “strongly oppose legislation that fails to provide meaningful preemption or any proposal that creates a blanket private right of action,” according to a letter sent to Senators this week.

The letter further urges that a national privacy law be thoughtful and strong to avoid a patchwork of state laws that cause confusion and “places small businesses at a disadvantage by forcing compliance with a complex set of data regulations.”

The Chamber further stated that “[A] national data protection law including a private right of action would encourage a cottage industry of attorneys filing abusive lawsuits to obtain mandated fees, create further confusion as privacy rights are interpreted on a district basis, and hinder data-driven innovation.” Instead, the Chamber advocates that a national data privacy law “should be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission with adequate funding and due process protections as well as state attorneys general.”

There appears to be bipartisan momentum in Congress to enact a national data privacy law. We will see if that happens before other states fill the gap by enacting their own comprehensive data privacy laws, as Nevada, California, Virginia, Colorado, Utah and Connecticut have done.

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