A bipartisan data privacy bill that progressed out of a House committee in July has not been getting the attention it deserves in the news. The American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA), which advanced out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee by a 53-2 vote, is the most significant federal data protection law in the United States since the U.S. Privacy Act of 1974.
The bill isn’t perfect, and it has a few hurdles to clear before it can become law — but it takes a fairly comprehensive approach to protecting privacy, incorporating many of the policies of the European Union’s 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and represents a step forward in how the nation protects people’s rights — and their data.