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Overview of The Washington Privacy Act 2019

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31.Mar, 2020 Hansen Tong 0 Data Privacy

Earlier this year, the upper legislative chamber of the State of Washington passed the Washington Privacy Act, one of the US’s supposed strongest consumer data privacy protection regulatory framework.

The Act takes into consideration global data protection standards and best practices, as it seeks to strengthen the regime of consumer control and access over personal data held by corporations. The statute, built on the fundamentals laid by the EU’s GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act, vests much-needed powers on consumers regarding how their personal data is put to use. Among other things, the Act establishes consumer right to: know who is making use of their data, make changes to incorrect or outdated data, and request the deletion of certain classes of personal data.

But on the transmission of the Act to the lower legislative house –the Washington State House of Representatives, the process hit a brick wall. The impasse was in relation to the question of who should enforce the Act’s provisions – the Attorney General or consumers. When passing the bill, the Senate on its part vested enforcement powers on the AG. But in its amendment to the Act, the House of Representatives concentrated enforcement powers in the hands of consumers.

Moves were made to harmonize these contradicting positions, by the setting up of a concurrence meeting. Unfortunately, no headway was made, as the meeting was marred with disagreements. By implication, the Act fails to become an enacted law of the state of Washington on the 2nd attempt – the first attempt being in 2019.


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