Privacy Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week, in case you missed them. All articles can be found by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) would lack the resources to enforce Maryland privacy laws without a proposed tax on data brokers that would fund a dedicated privacy team in his office, he said during a state House Economic Matters Committee hearing Tuesday. During a livestreamed session, the panel heard testimony on HB-1089, which would require that data brokers register with the state and, starting in the 2027 tax year, pay a 6% tax on gross income.
The FTC would work productively with state attorneys general on privacy enforcement if Congress granted the authority in a federal privacy law, FTC nominee Mark Meador told the Senate Commerce Committee during his confirmation hearing Tuesday.
House Commerce Committee Republicans on Friday requested public input on potential federal privacy legislation. The elimination of a private right of action, preemption of state privacy and AI laws and conflicts with existing federal law were among the topics Republicans outlined in their request for information (RFI).
New Mexico lawmakers are weighing whether to join states like Washington and New York in passing health data privacy bills. The New Mexico House Health Committee voted 5-4, with Republicans voting no, to narrowly advance HB-430 at a livestreamed hearing Monday. Increased urgency in some states to protect reproductive health data privacy since President Donald Trump returned to the White House has driven interest in such legislation (see 2502210015).
Despite the Illinois legislature passing an amendment aimed at clarifying the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) last year, confusion remains about whether the measure applies retroactively, leaving pending cases in limbo that may take years to resolve, privacy lawyers said.
It’s unclear if fired Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will be reinstated, but recent legal success against the Trump administration is encouraging, newly dismissed PCLOB member Travis LeBlanc said Friday (see 2502110062).
More states are considering measures that protect the privacy of reproductive health data in the wake of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, privacy experts said in recent interviews.
French data protection regulator CNIL's guidelines on AI models "illustrate a more pragmatic approach than other regulatory positions addressing multiple issues raised by AI," Hogan Lovells privacy attorneys argued in a Feb. 18 post. For example, CNIL's position differs from that of Garante, the data protection authority (DPA) in Italy. Meanwhile, DPAs in other EU countries are waiting to see if the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) can craft a consensus, Etienne Drouard, a co-author of the post, said in an interview Thursday.
The president should be able to fire members of the FTC, and it’s good the Trump administration is preparing for a potential U.S. Supreme Court case that could make that a reality, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told us Thursday.