Vermont Spearheads Data Privacy Protections By Letting Individuals Sue
Three cheers for enforceable privacy laws!
At first glance, Facebook, Amazon, and Google seem to be operating in different markets. Facebook deals in catching up on high school friends’ lives, Amazon in various knick-knacks, and Google deals in helping you prove to your friend that you were right this whole time. But on the back end, they are some of the biggest names in the world when it comes to collecting and selling data. A Facebook data breach here and a Google data breach there — consumers are subject to their data being traded, often without their knowledge or some way of holding companies accountable for their dealings. Thankfully, things are changing in Vermont. From The Record:
Vermont’s legislature on Friday passed one of the country’s strongest comprehensive data privacy laws, with language allowing individuals to sue companies for violating their privacy rights — an unprecedented provision among similar existing state laws.
The bill includes data minimization requirements, which significantly constrain what personal data companies can gather and use and bans companies from selling consumers’ sensitive data, allowing individuals to sue if they believe businesses have done so.
The private right of action allows individuals to hold companies which they believe have violated their rights accountable without relying on state authorities to bring action. A similar provision included in Illinois’ biometric privacy law has led to a wave of class action lawsuits alleging corporate malfeasance.
This good news for folks in the Green Mountain State will likely move the dial toward increased data privacy for everyone else. Websites aiming to be Vermont compliant may make uniform changes that increase the security for anyone using the sites — the looming threat of GDPR encouraged companies that aren’t even in the EU to buff up their data security. Businesses outside of Vermont that deal with the data of Vermonters will have to either conform to the new law or set aside a budget to prepare for the inevitable class action suits.
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Vermont Passes Data Privacy Law Allowing Consumers To Sue Companies [The Record]
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