CCAGW Urges Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to Oppose Data Privacy in Special Session
State Action
May 6, 2022
Governor Ron DeSantis
400 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399
Dear Governor DeSantis,
On behalf of the 213,891 members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) in Florida, I would like to thank you for your leadership on data privacy legislation and urge you to oppose the inclusion of any data privacy bill in the upcoming special legislative session.
During the regular legislative session, the House of Representatives passed HB 9, but the Senate did not consider that bill. Bringing up HB 9 or any variation thereof is not only inappropriate during a special session, but also contrary to the sole purpose of this special session, which your April 26, 2022, proclamation stated was to consider property insurance and reinsurance.
While we understand the desire to tamp down on violations incurred during data brokering of consumer information, and protecting the privacy of personal identifying information online, passing a data privacy bill in the special session will unfortunately fail to achieve that objective. Instead, it would increase costs for Florida businesses by tens of billions of dollars, and create instability, confusion, and uncertainty for companies doing business over the internet and their customers. The internet is not contained within a single state’s boundaries and therefore participants operating within the internet ecosystem can only be regulated by the federal government under the Commerce Clause, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
As Floridians continue to experience rising costs due to inflation, they do not need to be burdened with the additional and unnecessary costs that would be imposed by a data privacy bill. Rather than enact another state law that would impose restrictions on businesses performing interstate commerce that also collect consumer data, the Florida state legislature should strongly encourage Congress to enact a national data privacy framework that will promote innovation to enable Florida’s economy to grow, while providing certainty across state borders for the regulation of data privacy.
Again, I thank you for your leadership and urge you to inform the legislature that you oppose the consideration of a data privacy bill in the upcoming special session.
Sincerely,
Tom Schatz
President, CCAGW
