Data Privacy Statute
Response to Chris Giovanetty
Hello Giovanetty, your POST is increasingly insightful, especially on the lack of a comprehensive data privacy law at the federal level. The need for a stringent data protection law is informed by the increased collection of customers’ data by organizations, as well as recent cases of data breach of personal information. In 2005, Choicepoint, a data broker announced that it had sold private information of an estimated 400,000 individuals to identity thieves (EPIC, n.d.). Similarly, Veteran Affairs lost private information, which affected 26.5 million persons (EPIC, n.d.). Besides, over half of the US populace perceives that their personal information is at an increased risk today compared to half a decade ago (O’Connor, 2018). This trend is worrying since access to this information by hackers and fraudsters can result in substantial adverse outcomes.
Moreover, I concur with you that the lack of federal-level data protection legislation is a significant hindrance and cause of a chaotic data protection environment. With the slackness of the federal government to take action, states are in a hurry to pass their data privacy laws (Beckerman, 2019). The result is a myriad of different laws trying to address the same issue. The numerous data protection enactments imply that an individual who orders a good from a business in Missouri, which has its production in Florida, could have his/her personal information subjected under three different laws or by no relevant law (Beckerman, 2019). This scenario increases the risk of a data breach on customers’ information. On a global, it is plausible to develop a universal data protection guideline based on the European Union data protection law. The existing data protection statute in the European Union is comprehensive and provides a basis for other nations to craft stringent data protection legislation (Ehret, 2019). The use of the EU law will help in creating a data protection legislation, which is universally accepted.