3 - The Current Privacy and Data Security Legal Landscape

Summary

Most of the existing privacy and security legal frameworks at both the federal and state level provide incomplete safeguards against many of the privacy and information security harms highlighted in earlier chapters. Many of these frameworks have long been critiqued by privacy law experts for their lack of effectiveness. The IoT amplifies these inadequacies as it compounds existing privacy and security challenges.

At the state level, the patchwork of privacy and security legislation creates varying obligations for businesses without consistently ensuring that individuals receive adequate privacy and cybersecurity protection. State legislation also suffers from several shortcomings and is often replete with gaping privacy and security holes. Even the CCPA, the first privacy statute of its kind in the United States, has several limitations. Further, varying state privacy and security legislation also enables unequal access to privacy and security between citizens of different states.