Breaking the Privacy Gridlock: A Broader Look at Remedies

Abstract

Divisions over two enforcement issues—private right of action and federal preemption—have long gridlocked the effort to enact federal consumer privacy legislation. A look at regulatory systems outside the privacy field, however, reveals a complex landscape of enforcement mechanisms and remedies, many of which have not yet received much attention in the privacy debate. Insights from financial services regulation, environmental law, labor law, and other fields may offer ideas for assembling an effective web of enforcement for a federal privacy law.

In November 2020, we convened two workshops bringing together scholars from fields other than privacy to describe the enforcement and remedies structures in those other fields. In this paper, we offer some insights drawn from those workshops and further research, in the hope that they will generate creative thinking and expand the scope of the remedies and enforcement discussion in the privacy arena.

Keywords: privacy, remedies, enforcement, supervision, information disclosure, gatekeepers, compensation, deterrence, class actions

JEL Classification: K2, K4, K42, L5