Jamie Danker had a distinguished privacy career in government both at GAO and DHS before moving to the private sector. In this episode, she makes connections between privacy laws and rules of conduct that bind the federal government and expectations for private companies. The federal government has had a privacy law since 1974 and the E-Government Act has required privacy impact assessments since its enactment in 2002.  Federal government agencies are bound by statute to treat information obtained from or related to private citizens with care and not to accumulate information that is not needed to perform a governmental function. 

We're joined again by Georgia Tech Professor and Alston & Bird LLP Senior Counsel Peter Swire to discuss the implications of the Schrems II decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and its interpretation and implementation by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB). Prof. Swire talks about the potential consequences of the CJEU’s opinion and the strict interpretation by the EDPB in its draft guidance. One such consequence could be data localization in Europe and elsewhere and negative implications for commerce. Prof. Swire, who serves on the board of the Cross-Border Data Forum, notes the need to resolve the issue of U.S. government surveillance and access to personal data of persons covered by the EU’s GDPR. We also go over the importance of enactment of a U.S. national data protection law to give U.S. negotiators more credibility with their counterparts in the EU and more confidence in the importance the U.S places on individual privacy, and cover Prof. Swire’s comprehensive testimony on these issues before the Senate Commerce Committee in December 2020.

This week, Jerry and Jody are joined by Jill Reber, General Manager – Data Privacy at Logic20/20, who discusses the strategies companies are adopting as they seek to operationalize data protection in a rapidly changing environment. Reber notes how compliance challenges have ramped up as multiple jurisdictions, domestically and internationally, are putting in place varying requirements and outlines the merits of having national privacy legislation. She also talks about the efforts companies are undertaking to help each other in navigating the privacy and cyber-risk terrain.

In this episode, Jerry and Jody are joined by Michael Copps, former Commissioner and Acting Chairman of the FCC, who now serves as Special Advisor on Media and Democracy Reform at Common Cause. Copps has called on the new Biden administration to establish a Presidential Commission on the Future of the Internet. He contrasts the regulation of the broadcast industry in the public interest with the relatively hands-off treatment of internet commerce and cites privacy, disinformation, and antitrust concerns, as well as the impact of social media giants on local news outlets, as reasons why a comprehensive policy review is in order. At the same time, Copps says that the new Congress need not wait for the Commission report to start to deal with issues that can be addressed.

In this week's episode, Jody and Jerry are joined by Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business professor Peter Swire, who explains issues and obstacles regarding federal preemption of state privacy laws and discusses a potential approach to a federal privacy law.

The EU has launched a series of data regulation initiatives designed to make Europe the "Data Continent" while the U.S. has yet to adopt national data governance rules and lacks an authoritative voice in the international data policy discussions. Jody and Jerry discuss their thoughts on where's the U.S. is going and what's next.

In this week's episode, we're joined by Jurgen Van Staden, Associate General Counsel for Privacy and Technology at Verizon Media, to discuss the complexities and trade-offs involved in the various types of data used by businesses and the pros and cons of national legislation.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has led the way in establishing cross-border data protection standards. As the U.S. explores the possibility of enacting a national law that establishes privacy and data protection standards, it is worthwhile to consider what GDPR has accomplished in terms of uniform compliance requirements. Joined by Crowell & Moring's Maarten Stassen, we look beneath the surface to see what is working and explore how individual EU country oversight and enforcement regimes may still present challenges for companies operating in Europe seeking to do business on a continent-wide or world-wide scale.

This week, we examine the evolution of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As we consider the issues surrounding potential adoption of national privacy legislation in the U.S., we will explore what knowledge might be derived from the evolution of data protection legislation in the EU – why it happened and how. Starting with the 1980 with Guidelines Governing the Protection of Privacy and Trans-Border Data Flows, the EU gradually moved to a Union-wide law, which proved necessary to avoid the confusion created by varying member nation privacy policies. Our guest, John Bowman, now a Senior Principal at Promontory, served as the U.K. government’s lead negotiator as GDPR was being drafted. In this episode, we explore with John the rationale that led to adoption of the GDPR as well as what has worked and what hasn't. Of particular relevance to the American experience is how the nation states that make up the EU arrived at a common framework, but also the role each member country plays when it comes to interpretation and enforcement of the GDPR.

In January 2020, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a voluntary Privacy Framework, a repository of resource materials and a roadmap to support continued collaboration between NIST and stakeholders from across government, academia, and industry on privacy risk management. The Privacy Framework raises important privacy principles and approaches that should be taken into consideration when discussing possible national privacy legislation. This episode features two NIST advisors who helped lead the development of the Privacy Framework: Naomi Lefkovitz, Senior Privacy Policy Advisor, and Dylan Gilbert, Privacy Policy Advisor.