Jon on Nostr: Yeah, at least in the US, most privacy laws were either written by big tech or were ...

Yeah, at least in the US, most privacy laws were either written by big tech or were modified enough to get them to be acceptable. And, there are barriers to doing anything stronger. Washington State just passed the My Health My Data Act, protecting consumer health data, which will in many ways be the strongest privacy law in the country once it goes into effect next year, but the original version was much stronger. For example, the original version completely prohibited sales of consumer health data …but it turns out that 15 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that a Vermont law prohibiting sales of health data was unconstitutional, so legislators didn’t want to risk having the whole bill thrown out once big tech sues to stop it (which they almost certainly will), so changed it to allow sales as long as they get written consent (which is the standard the existing HIPAA national law applies to health data held by doctors and hospitals). I can certainly see why they did it but it’s noticeably weaker. And even with the strong original bill, when I testified I pointed out ways it needed to be further strengthened to really protect people!

Ari Ezra Waldman has some great papers looking at why privacy laws are the way they are. Depressing, but fascinating.

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