Boucher Looks Into His Crystal Ball On Privacy Legislation
October 19, 2011
| 2:16 PM
Former Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., a key player on tech and telecom issues for more than two decades, made some bold and not-so-bold predictions on Wednesday about the fate of privacy and data security legislation this Congress.
The not-so-bold prediction is that lawmakers will not pass broad comprehensive privacy legislation this Congress, a view echoed by both privacy advocates and industry critics of such proposals.
"There are some major company supporters of a privacy bill, but not the critical mass that I think is necessary to drive a bill through to passage," Boucher said in a speech at a forum sponsored by the Online Trust Alliance.
But Boucher also predicted that the House, at the very least, will likely pass a children's privacy bill offered by Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Ed Markey, D-Mass., and also a measure, approved last week by the House Judiciary Committee, that would update a 1988 law protecting the privacy of consumer video rental records.
The Markey-Barton children's privacy bill would bar companies from tracking children online for marketing purposes, restrict the collection of personal data about teens and require companies when technologically feasible to allow teens to erase publicly available personal information online about themselves. Boucher noted that the two lawmakers are polar opposites on many issues with Markey being among the most liberal lawmakers in the House, and Barton among the most conservative.
"Whenever they do agree on something, they are very powerful as a duo. And they can often drive the result and I think they will do so in this case," said Boucher, who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Communications Subcommittee in the last Congress before losing his bid for re-election in 2010.
But Boucher may be underestimating the controversy surrounding their bill. Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee with jurisdiction over consumer privacy, and industry representatives have questioned the feasibility of the eraser provision in the Barton-Markey children's privacy bill. She also said following a hearing earlier this month that she did not plan on holding a hearing on the measure.
Boucher, who is now a partner with the Sidley Austin law firm, said he also expects there will be a strong push to enact legislation that would establish national standards for protecting personal data and for notifying consumers following a data breach. Bono Mack's Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee approved a data-breach bill on a party-line vote in July.
Boucher said the bill would require bipartisan support to make it through Congress. Bono Mack has been trying to work with Democrats to craft a compromise bipartisan bill. Boucher noted that Energy and Commerce ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who opposed Bono Mack's bill, will be pushing for legislation that is as strong his state's data breach law.
"The question for industry is do they care enough about having a uniform national standard that they're willing to accept a stronger California standard," Boucher said.
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