Thune Joining Senate Commerce Effort to Craft Data Privacy Bill

Senate Majority Whip John Thune is joining a bipartisan group of lawmakers working on broad data privacy legislation, two Senate aides said.

Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss,), and Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Miss.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) have been developing a measure that may pre-empt state privacy laws and give the Federal Trade Commission more tools to police companies’ data-handling practices.

Thune (R-S.D.), was chairman of the Senate panel before Wicker.

Privacy advocates and the private sector alike are pressuring Congress to move a bill, amid a series of high-profile data incidents involving companies such as Facebook Inc. and Equifax Inc., and tough privacy laws in California and the European Union.