Senate Commerce GOP leaders introduce COVID-19 data privacy bill

A group of Senate Republicans led by Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) has introduced legislation to give consumers choices and control over how their personal health, device, geolocation, and proximity data can be collected.

The COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act sets up a regulatory regime under the Federal Trade Commission where companies will need to get “affirmative express consent” from individuals in order to collect their data for tracking the spread of COVID-19.

“As the coronavirus continues to take...