Alyssa Prahl

Federalism and the Human Right to Privacy

Started June 21, 2024

Abstract or project description

This paper analyzes three main questions: why are data privacy laws a state matter, versus a federal matter? Who is benefitting from having state laws versus national laws governing data privacy, and who is "losing"? And should data privacy laws be centralized? This paper takes California and Virginia as case studies, given the widespread acceptance within the literature that California's consumer privacy act is deemed one of the "strongest" data privacy laws, whilst Virginia is considered one of the weakest given its numerous exemptions and lack of a private right to action clause. In taking these two states' laws as case studies, this paper situates a discussion of the power imbalances enabled by state versus federal data privacy laws to a broader discussion as to the extent to which data privacy is a human right.