Is California’s Kids Code Screwing Up The Efforts For A Federal Privacy Law?
It really does feel like the legislative process regarding the tech world and privacy is a complete mess. While politicians are right that it would be good if we got a comprehensive privacy bill in place, they seem to have no idea what that even means. Actually, it seems like they don't even know what privacy means. And thus, the mess just continues. California tried to leap ahead into the unknown by putting together a truly ridiculous bill (CCPA) that no one has even figured out yet, despite it having passed years ago. And, without even bothering to understand any of it, California has pushed ahead again with the California's Age Appropriate Design Code law, which somehow intersects with the CCPA, but again, no one's quite sure how or why.
And now, people are pointing out that the kid's code is actually messing up plans for a federal privacy law. Even before the law was signed by Governor Newsom, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she was putting the brakes on the only federal privacy law with any traction (not that it was good...) because it might upset Californian politicians. The concern: federal law might pre-empt California's laws:
However, Governor Newsom, the California Privacy Protection Agency and top state leaders have pointed out the American Data Privacy and Protection Act does not guarantee the same essential consumer protections as California's existing privacy laws. Proudly, California leads the nation not only in innovation, but also in consumer protection. With so much innovation happening in our state, it is imperative that California continues offering and enforcing the nation's strongest privacy rights. California's landmark privacy laws and the new kids age-appropriate design bill, both of which received unanimous and bipartisan support in both chambers, must continue to protect Californians - and states must be allowed to address rapid changes in technology.
The concern is that the federal law would basically wipe out state laws. I know that some people are concerned about this, but a federal law really needs to do exactly that. First off, whatever you think of California's attempts at privacy laws, there are all those other states out there as well. And we're already seeing how states like Florida and Texas have been passing dangerous content moderation bills that are more designed to spite internet companies than actually protect users.
How soon do you think they're going to do the same with privacy laws as well?
Second, it's basically impossible for smaller companies to comply with even California's weird law. How are we going to comply with 50 separate state laws, each with their own variations and quirks and problems (and, likely, contradictions). A federal law that pre-empts state laws sets a single standard across the country. As bad as the EU's Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act may turn out to be, at the very least, they're trying to harmonize the laws across the EU.
The US, which should be more harmonized than the EU in general, seems to be going in the other direction.
Yes, sure, California feels the need to do stuff because no one in DC can get their act together to pass a reasonable federal privacy law. But that doesn't mean that we should just let any state do whatever it wants (or what UK aristocrats want).
The fact that this awful California law is now being used as an excuse to hold up any effort on a federal privacy law seems like a really, really silly excuse. And, to be clear, it almost certainly is an excuse, because Pelosi and others in Congress know that they're currently unable to pass any actually serious privacy law, so claiming that it will somehow block" terrible California laws is seen as a way to hide their own failings.
But, at the very least, it seems to suggest that maybe California should stop rushing through so many half-baked laws.