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Consumer Reports: The Uniform Law Commission privacy model bill is a disaster

The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), an organization that seeks to develop model legislation to help bring consistency and uniformity to state laws, has been working on a model privacy law for several years — and had the opportunity to introduce a meaningful consensus document that raises the bar for consumer data privacy. But the ULC’s finalized Uniform Personal Data Protection Act (UPDPA), approved last month, misses the mark. 

The model law would do little to reform companies’ inappropriate data collection and sharing behaviors — including by explicitly exempting behavioral advertising from the protections in the bill. If such a bill were to be implemented, it could be worse than doing nothing at all, as it could forestall future  privacy legislation that is more beneficial to consumers and holds companies accountable.

Please click here for a full analysis of the bill. For CR’s comments on an earlier draft of the bill, please see the attached PDF.