Jim Halpert and Samantha Kersul write:
For the third straight year, the Washington State Legislature missed an opportunity to pass a multi-rights general data privacy bill before it adjourned Sunday. The failure illustrates the difficulty of passing broad privacy legislation in an environment where both business and privacy and trial lawyer groups are well organized and influential and disagree about key issues.
Sponsor State Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Wash., introduced Senate Bill 5062, the Washington Privacy Act, early in the session, incorporating several changes advocated for by privacy groups and business groups. The net result was more demanding in several ways (for example, on loyalty programs and service provider obligations) than in a variant of the WPA enacted in Virginia this year. The bill also boosted funding for the attorney general’s office to enforce the bill but did not add a private right of action. The WPA passed the Senate by a bipartisan vote of 48 to 1 margin.
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