The FTC’s 2024 settlement with NGL Labs and 2023 agreement with Epic Games could serve as a blueprint for federal and state enforcers protecting teens from privacy and design-related harms, former Consumer Protection Bureau Director Samuel Levine told Privacy Daily in an interview Monday.
A federal court on Wednesday declined to block a Tennessee law requiring that social media companies verify the age of account holders and gain parental consent from users younger than 18 before they can open accounts.
The FTC’s unfairness authority can continue to be a useful enforcement tool in holding social media companies liable for harming teens, former FTC Chair Lina Khan wrote in a Stanford Law Review article with former Consumer Protection Bureau Director Samuel Levine and former Chief Technologist Stephanie Nguyen.
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.
While children and teens' safety online has been a focus of regulators and lawmakers globally, privacy experts believe this trend will continue growing, according to their recent posts.
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.
A federal court halted enforcement of a Florida social media law that would prohibit kids 13 and younger from creating social media accounts, requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to create them and uses age-verification to implement these restrictions. The ruling by the U.S. District Court for Northern Florida on Tuesday granted a request for a preliminary injunction brought by NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), who say HB-3 violates the First Amendment and poses privacy risks.
With few public details about states' privacy consortium, lawyers are questioning what the group's formation means for enforcement and fines in the future. April's announcement could be another sign that enforcement is increasing -- and more reason for companies to bolster compliance efforts, said multiple attorneys who work in privacy or commonly defend businesses facing state investigations.
A bill aimed at amending the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) may decrease the number of lawsuits if it's passed, but plaintiffs’ attorneys could simply find other avenues to bring claims, privacy lawyers who often represent defendants in such cases said.