With 20 states passing privacy laws and mounting public pressure, federal rules are on the way. The time to build privacy-ready operations is now.

The battle for federal privacy regulation may have been lost, but the war is far from over.

While political maneuvering derailed the latest push for nationwide legislation, the momentum for change is undeniable in the United States. Businesses and individuals want clear, unified standards with more than 80% of Americans supporting stricter federal data privacy and 20 states already passing data privacy laws.

This growing patchwork of state regulations creates compliance challenges for businesses across borders while leaving millions of Americans with inconsistent protections. Eventually, federal lawmakers will have to step in and bridge the privacy divide.

This interim period — between today’s fragmented landscape and tomorrow’s national framework — presents a crucial window. Organizations should get ahead of regulations by enhancing data protection strategies, backing employee training, and deploying centralized management tools.

The Long March Toward Data Privacy

The year 2024 promised a breakthrough for federal privacy legislation. In April, bipartisan lawmakers introduced the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA), proposing robust limitations on corporate data collection. The bill offered users unprecedented control, providing rights to access and delete data, plus the ability to opt out of data broker sales. By June, however, momentum collapsed. Under pressure from conservative legislators, APRA was stripped of its civil rights protections and data minimization principles and ultimately failed to advance beyond committee.

The bill is dead, but don’t be mistaken. The push for privacy is just beginning. We’re now the only G20 member without a comprehensive framework governing the collection and use of personal data. Americans from across the political spectrum, including record numbers of Republicans and Democrats — are in support of federal rules, especially as artificial intelligence ingests our data in new ways. Heading into the new year, we need privacy guarantees more than ever.

Expect more states to press forward and force the federal hand. For enterprises, this is a pivotal moment to start updating data handling for inevitable privacy changes on the horizon. The time for preparation isn’t coming — it’s here.

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Source: https://www.informationweek.com/data-management/federal-privacy-is-inevitable-in-the-us-prepare-now-