First, Let’s Talk About Consumer Privacy: 2023 Year in Review

<

div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”>

<

div class=”field__items”>

<

div class=”field__item even”>

Whatever online harms you want to alleviate on the internet today, you can do it better—with a broader impact—if you enact strong consumer data privacy legislation first. That is a grounding principle that has informed much of EFF’s consumer protection work in 2023.

While consumer privacy will not solve every problem, it is superior to many other proposals that attempt to address issues like child mental health or foreign government surveillance. That is true for two reasons: well written consumer privacy laws address the root source of corporate surveillance, and they can withstand constitutional scrutiny.

EFF’s work on this issue includes: (1) advocating for strong comprehensive consumer data privacy laws; (2) fighting bad laws; (3) protecting existing sectoral privacy laws.

Advocating for Strong Comprehensive Consumer Data Privacy

This year, EFF released a report titled “Privacy First: A Better Way to Address Online Harms.” The report listed the key pillars of a strong privacy law (like no online behavioral ads and minimization) and how these principles can help address current issues (like protecting children’s mental health or reproductive health privacy).

We highlighted why data privacy legislation is a form of civil rights legislation and why adtech surveillance often feeds government surveillance.

And we made the case why well-written privacy laws can be constitutional when they regulate the commercial processing of personal data; that personal data is private and not a matter of public concern; and the law is tailored to address the governmen

[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.