House Energy and Commerce Leadership Heed Calls from Civil Rights Leaders, Pull Down Privacy Legislation Markup

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mariah Wildgen, [email protected]

Latest discussion draft of the American Privacy Rights Act lacked explicit civil rights and algorithmic accountability protections

WASHINGTON — Koustubh “K.J.” Bagchi, vice president of the Center for Civil Rights and Technology, issued the following statement about the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee’s canceled markup of the latest discussion draft of the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024:

“Earlier this week, we and more than 50 civil society organizations asked House Energy and Commerce Committee leadership to postpone markup of the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) until they restore agreed upon civil rights protections. We are happy to see that Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R. Wash.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D. N.J.) decided to pull APRA in its current state from markup. Privacy rights are civil rights. To move forward on any comprehensive data privacy legislation without safeguards to ensure our data cannot be used to discriminate against us would have been an egregious mistake.

“In initial drafts of APRA and in the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA) of 2022, we and our fellow civil rights advocates fought for and won safeguards to explicitly protect our civil rights — from a prohibition on the use of data to discriminate based on protected characteristics to a private right of action to ensure violators were held accountable. There was bipartisan agreement to include those safeguards. Unfortunately, there are bad actors who equate anti-discrimination to anti-innovation. They couldn’t be further from the truth. Innovation is only real when it includes all of us, and guards against discrimination and promotes our civil rights.

“Our fight is far from over. This bill still needs to be revised before we can wholeheartedly support it. Our call to lawmakers is simple: Restore strong, explicit civil rights protections to what should be a comprehensive data privacy bill. It should include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity, which were omitted in previous APRA drafts. Those protections will ultimately ban exploitative data practices and ensure that decisions made by algorithmic and AI systems are fair for everyone. We know that an equitable data future is possible, and we won’t stop until it’s achieved.”

In September 2023, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund launched the Center for Civil Rights and Technology to serve as a hub for advocacy, education, and research at the intersection of civil rights and technology policy. Our experts dive into the most pressing policy issues in three key areas: AI and privacy, voting and platform accountability, and broadband access. Earlier this year, the Center held a convening titled “Regulatory Code: AI, Civil Rights, and the Future of Democracy” and created an advisory council made up of civil society and academic leaders.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 240 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.

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