FTC Explores Proposing Regulations on Data Privacy

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced today that they are exploring rules to crack down on commercial surveillance and lax data security. The agency released today an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on the harms stemming from commercial surveillance and whether new rules are needed to protect people’s privacy and information.

“Firms now collect personal data on individuals at a massive scale and in a stunning array of contexts,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The growing digitization of our economy—coupled with business models that can incentivize endless hoovering up of sensitive user data and a vast expansion of how this data is used—means that potentially unlawful practices may be prevalent. Our goal today is to begin building a robust public record to inform whether the FTC should issue rules to address commercial surveillance and data security practices and what those rules should potentially look like.”

Read the FTC press release here.