“IBM fully supports national legislation to provide consumers across our nation with strong and consistent protections over their personal data. Unfortunately, the inclusion of a private right of action in the American Data Privacy and Protection Act gravely undermines the objectives of the bill.

 

“As we recently stated in a letter to the sponsors of this bill, the private right of action would create a permanent state of uncertainty for consumers and businesses by driving more lawsuits based on technical infractions or where little recovery actually goes to consumers. This means that Americans can look forward to many more billboards of lawyers offering to sue somebody, but not to better protection of their online data.

 

“Congress should support strong and consistent privacy enforcement by providing exclusive enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission and to state attorneys general – organizations with the mission of protecting consumers, rather than profiting from them. This uniform, predictable approach would give consumers a better understanding of their rights as well as the protection they need, including the ability to obtain redress.

 

“A private right of action, even a limited one, will jeopardize America’s continued innovation leadership and competitiveness in emerging technologies. For this reason, we cannot support this bill.”

 

-Christopher Padilla, Vice President, Government and Regulatory Affairs, IBM

 

 

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