Two consumer data privacy bills died in the Florida legislature during the final days of the 2021 session in what amounted to a win for business groups concerned about the bills’ potential litigation and financial burdens.
Lawmakers in the House of Representatives and Senate passed different versions of consumer data privacy proposals in a bid to reign in what Gov. Ron DeSantis termed the power of “Big Tech” and social media giants. The legislature was unable to reach a compromise and send it to the governor.
Among the business groups expressing relief at the outcome was the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which viewed the prospect of different states passing their own data privacy restrictions as an economic burden for businesses.
“We were very pleased that the Florida privacy bill did not pass,” Dan Jaffe, ANA’s executive vice president of government relations, told the Florida Record. “The House proposal contained a broad private right of action provision that would have been a present to the trial bar but would have been highly damaging to small business in particular and all businesses in general.”
In the Senate bill, SB 1734, one provision would have let third parties opt-out consumers from receiving certain ads regardless of those consumers’ wishes, Jaffe said.
“ANA continues to believe that privacy should be handled on a national level rather than on a patchwork of state initiatives to assure that all members of the public get adequate protection regardless of where they are located,” he said.
The Associated Industries of Florida (AIF) also pledged to work with state lawmakers to ensure that its members and other businesses work to protect Florida consumers’ private information and develop further policy recommendations.
“The legislation presented this session would have put a significant financial burden on Florida’s businesses, who are already dealing with the challenges of COVID-19 and facing the implementation of an increase in the minimum wage, which could have had dramatic effects on our state’s economy,” the AIF’s senior vice president of state and federal affairs, Brewster Bevis, said in a prepared statement. “Additionally, the proposed private cause of action would have opened a Pandora’s box of costly class-action lawsuits for these businesses.”
The Florida Governor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
The Senate bill would have given consumers the right to block a business from selling their personal information, the power to review the data a business collects on them, and the right to delete and correct inaccurate data.