FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Florida Privacy Legislation

Tallahassee, FL, March 9, 2021—AAF Florida Leaders: Later today the Florida House Regulatory Reform Subcommittee will be taking up HB 969, the Computer Data Privacy Act. While AAF supports meaningful privacy protections for Florida consumers, this legislation would not achieve those goals and would diminish consumers’ online experiences while harming Florida companies’ ability to business online.

Among other reasons, the HB 969 should be opposed because:

• It appears to be based on the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, which was a confusing and sometimes self-contradictory law that has already been amended numerous times,
• It would allow third parties to “opt-out of the sale or sharing of the consumer’s personal information of the consumer’s behalf” without insuring that these persons are truly authorized to act on the consumer’s behalf,
• The data retention schedule restrictions are overly burdensome and unnecessary,
• Enforcement should be vested in the Attorney General and not a private right of action which could harm businesses by unleashing a torrent of frivolous lawsuits.

The U.S. economy as well as Florida consumers and businesses have all reaped countless benefits from the Internet ecosystem. Much of this has been made possible by data-driven advertising, which is fueled by responsibly using the free flow of data. All of that would be imperiled by the passage of HB 969.

Attached is a letter of opposition AAF filed with the committee which details these and other objections more thoroughly. I urge you and the members of your ad club to contact your lawmakers and ask them to oppose this harmful legislation. Please feel free to forward them our letter and let them know you support the points made. Your representative in Tallahassee, Jack Hebert, is hard at work on this issue also.

Please let me know if you have any comments or questions and thank you for your work on behalf of the advertising industry.

Attachments: Ad Trade Letter in Opposition to Florida HB 969

—Clark Rector