Growth in States' Tech Hires Boosts Sophisticated Privacy Enforcement; AI Could Be Next
As state attorneys general significantly increase technical hiring in pursuit of more sophisticated enforcement of privacy laws, companies should prepare for a similar raising of the regulatory bar in AI and other tech areas, said Brownstein Hyatt lawyers in a blog post Wednesday.
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Adding in-house technical strength, in the style of some federal regulators, "will likely result in more targeted investigative demands [in the privacy arena], deeper technical reviews and more complex litigation risk," they said.
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware and Texas are "aggressively hiring technical experts -- including former federal employees, Big Tech veterans, and in-house counsel and privacy officers -- to support privacy enforcement," the lawyers added.
In addition, they cited the bipartisan eight-state coalition of attorneys general formed in April to facilitate discussions and shared priorities (see 2504160037). At times, members of the group assist each other with enforcement (see 2506090050).
Enforcement "is evolving from merely reviewing privacy policies to conducting deep technical audits of backend systems and data infrastructures," the bloggers said. California and Texas in particular have conducted detailed privacy investigations.
Recent examples include California settlements against Honda (see 2503120037), Healthline (see 2507030026) and Todd Synder (see 2505060043). In May, Texas announced a nearly $1.4 billion settlement with Google over the company's allegedly unlawful tracking and collection of users' personal information (see 2505120054).
The lawyers predict the building of a deep, technical staff will eventually transfer to the AI space, in part because of the recent failure at the federal level to include a 10-year moratorium on enforcement of state AI regulations in the reconciliation bill (see 2507010071). However, they note Capitol Hill lawmakers will make "additional attempts."
"Given the large number of companies collecting consumer data and using some form of AI, the market at large should be prepared for heightened scrutiny across the board," the blog said.
As such, "businesses should ensure their privacy and AI compliance programs are robust and well-documented and consider proactively developing relationships with AGs in the states where they operate under the guidance of experienced counsel."