The SECURE Data Act 2026 and GUARD Financial Data Act were introduced on April 22, 2026. This legislation would impose major data restrictions and requirements across the U.S. economy. The bill would give the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) expanded powers to oversee data collection and use.

The SECURE Data

Continue Reading U.S.: Comprehensive Federal Privacy Legislation Introduced

The Senate Commerce Committee held an oversight hearing of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on April 15, 2026, its first in six years. Chairman Andrew Ferguson testified that the FTC policy focus will be combating hidden fees and misleading pricing practices by avoiding misleading representations about pricing and clearly disclosing total cost up front.  

The

Continue Reading U.S.: FTC Oversight Hearing

The FTC just released a policy statement regarding enforcement activities related to COPPA, which can be found at this link.

According to Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, age verification technologies are important child-protective technologies, and this policy statement “…incentivizes operators to use these innovative tools, empowering parents to protect

Continue Reading U.S.: FTC Issues COPPA Policy Statement to Incentivize the Use of Age Verification Technologies to Protect Children Online

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reiterated its long-held view that hashing or pseudonymizing identifiers does not render data anonymous, in a post to its Technology Blog on July 24, 2024.

In the rather strongly worded post, while acknowledging that hashing and pseudonymizing data has the benefit of obscuring the underlying personal data, the FTC

Continue Reading FTC Reiterates that Hashed and Pseudonymized Data is Still Identifiable Data

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) is taking bold actions to challenge business’s collection and monetization of consumers’ personal data—particularly sensitive personal data. This month, the FTC reached settlements with a data broker, X-Mode Social and its successor Outlogic LLC (“X-Mode”), and an alcohol addiction treatment firm, Monument Inc. (“Monument”), for, among other things, allegedly selling

Continue Reading US: The FTC Cracks Down on Sensitive Personal Information Disclosures