SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Advertisers and regulators are considering the potential of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) to balance business interests with protecting consumers’ privacy, panel members said Monday during the USENIX Privacy Engineering Practice and Respect (PEPR) conference. But whether PETs, which include differential privacy and homomorphic encryption, are up to the task is unclear, panelists said.

23andMe defended its planned sale in a statement to us Tuesday, decrying a lawsuit and separate objection filed Monday by a bipartisan group of nearly 30 state attorneys general. The AGs opposed the proposed sale of collected genetic information without each customer's consent. Founder Anne Wojcicki and interim CEO Joe Selsavage defended the company's privacy practices during a House Oversight Committee hearing Tuesday.

Studying the fundamentals surrounding AI and privacy before imposing regulation will help create a future where generative AI's benefits can coexist with privacy rights, panelists said Monday during a webinar of the Federalist Society Regulatory Transparency Project.

The actual cost to a company from a privacy enforcement action could be many times higher than the regulator's fine, Clarip CEO Andy Sambandam said in an interview. Privacy has become a quickly rising concern for companies amid a growing number of privacy laws and state enforcement actions, he told Privacy Daily.

State privacy investigators are in constant contact about potential enforcement action that goes beyond the recently launched bipartisan consortium (see 2504160037), privacy officials from California, Colorado and Texas said.

DOJ should enforce the law and block TikTok in the U.S. if ByteDance isn’t willing to divest from the Chinese social media app, several Republican senators told us in interviews Thursday, citing data-related national security concerns.

As the California Privacy Protection Agency ramps up enforcement, it will “telegraph” how it plans to enforce the state’s privacy law and will act in ways that aren’t far from what other states would do, CPPA Executive Director Tom Kemp said in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday with Privacy Daily. In addition, Kemp panned Congress’ proposed 10-year moratorium on state AI regulation while saying the agency is being careful about what aspects of AI may come under its jurisdiction.

DOJ should act to prevent countries like the U.K. from seeking backdoor access into Americans’ encrypted devices, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said Thursday.

Amendments to Connecticut’s privacy law passed the legislature on Tuesday as part of a different bill that included other subjects. Changes to the Connecticut Data Privacy Act would take effect July 1, 2026, if the bill is signed by Gov. Ned Lamont (D).

The emergence of AI and adtech is forcing a rethink of gathering and managing consent for use of personal data, speakers said Tuesday at a #RISK Digital UK/EU webinar.