Ever-increasing data protection requirements around the world are keeping privacy professionals on the edge of their seats, said officials from Stripe, HP and Bank of America during a BigID compliance webinar Thursday.

As the Vermont Senate Institutions Committee cleared a comprehensive privacy bill (S-71) in a 5-0 vote Friday, Chair Wendy Harrison (D) reminded colleagues that the legislature is in the “middle of the process.” A day earlier, the panel replaced the legislation's language with that of an industry-favored bill (S-93), which consumer privacy advocates have called weak (see 2503130053).

The Department of Health and Human Services should withdraw the Biden administration’s proposed Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule and issue less onerous regulations for healthcare cybersecurity, medical groups said in comments.

Expect House Republicans to take up a Senate-passed deepfake porn bill “promptly,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Thursday (see 2503050017).

Judge Algenon Marbley for the U.S. District Court of Southern Ohio, peppered the state with questions about content neutrality Wednesday during oral argument in NetChoice v. Yost. The case concerns NetChoice's challenge of an Ohio age-verification law that requires websites targeting children younger than 18 to obtain parental consent before engaging in contracts with minors, among other things.

LONDON -- The U.K. Information Commissioner's Office is intensively engaged in the hot privacy issues of biometrics and web scraping, Regulatory Risk Executive Director Stephen Almond said at Thursday's IAPP Data Protection Intensive conference.

In an apparent win for industry, the Vermont Senate Institutions Committee voted 5-0 Thursday to replace the text of a comprehensive privacy bill (S-71) with that of S-93. S-93, which the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and other business groups preferred, lacks a private right of action and is much like Connecticut's privacy law.

LONDON -- With the rule of law and protection of individuals trending as issues in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, it's important to have data protection authorities ensuring that fundamental rights are respected, Hielke Hijmans, litigation chamber president of the Belgian Data Protection Authority, said Wednesday.

LONDON -- How companies handle people's "digital remains" is one of the most pressing privacy issues of this century, Carl Ohman, Uppsala University (Sweden) political science professor, said Wednesday at the IAPP Data Protection Intensive UK conference.

The FTC’s proposed rule under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) includes some concerning language related to “indefinite” data retention, Commissioner Melissa Holyoak said Wednesday.