It took the magic of an eclipse across America for US legislatures to finally progress on developing federal data privacy regulation. The American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) is the most significant news event for privacy in the US and the turning point that privacy activists have been waiting for. While the APRA hasn’t received its approval from Congress yet, the need for a federal privacy regulation has never been more apparent. This is especially even more pronounced since several states, such as California (CCPA/CPRA), have passed and continue to pass their own data privacy laws.
The APRA began to have a more straightforward path toward reality as recent executive orders on data transfers and AI delivery and development would be challenging to implement without a national law.
The TLDR on the APRA
While the APRA is still a “discussion draft,” it aims to provide a national data privacy and security framework outlining consumer rights and data management requirements. Under the APRA, companies would have to limit the types of consumer data they collect, retain, and use, allowing only data needed to operate their services.
The new legislation fills pieces of the data privacy protection puzzle and adapts to new cybersecurity complexities and technological advancements, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). It addresses the constant data privacy challenges and proposes a more unified approach to giving consumers specific rights to their personal data. The ARPA gives Americans more control over their privacy online, such as the right to opt out of target ads and take legal action for violating their privacy rights.
The draft of the APRA is an evolved version of the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA). Both legislation provided privacy rights to consumers, required data minimization, advanced security measures, and set rule-making by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). However, although both are similar, several significant changes need attention:
The APRA excludes small businesses only if:
- Annual revenue is less than $40 million.
- Data processing is more than 200,000 individuals, with exceptions.
- No revenue is earned from the transfer of data to third parties.
From a regulatory perspective, the federal law would aim to provide consistency regarding US consumers’ data rights.
How organizations can get in-front of the APRA
Regardless of the outcome of the new APRA, organizations must start implementing a comprehensive privacy program to prepare to comply with evolving privacy regulations and adapt to the constantly shifting data privacy landscape.
One way organizations can get in front of the APRA or any privacy regulation is to automate their data management processes so that each customer can efficiently process instructions to view, correct, delete, and download their data. The economic and reputational risks are even higher when consumers are given the right to sue organizations in the event of a data breach.
Other ways leaders can get ahead of APRA are:
- Discover Your Data: Discover and catalog your sensitive data, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured – in on-prem environments and across the cloud.
- Map Your Data: Automatically map PII and PI to identities, entities, and residencies to visualize data across systems.
- Enforce Privacy Policies: Ensure alignment and enforcement of data policies in accordance with privacy mandates to fulfill regulatory compliance requirements.
- Automate Data Rights Management: Automate individual, personal data rights fulfillment requests from access and updates to appeals and deletion.
- Track AI Violations & Ethics: Assess and monitor AI technology and usage across the organization to protect personal data and remediate risk.
- Monitor Cross-Border Data Transfers: Apply residency to data sources and individual, personal data with policies to trigger alerts on cross-border data transfer violations.
- Assess Privacy Risks: Initiate, manage, document, and complete various assessments, including PIA, DPIA, vendor, AI, TIA, LIA, and more for compliance and risk reduction.
- Accelerate Breach Analysis & Response: Accurately determine the extent of a data breach and notify the right individuals and entities according to regulatory requirements.
- Streamline Data Lifecycle Management: Apply a policy-based approach to automate data lifecycle management across collection, retention, and deletion.
The APRA represents a significant stride towards a more protected and private digital America. By understanding and preparing for these changes, organizations can not only comply with new regulations but also position themselves as leaders in the age of digital trust and security.
