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Create a federal privacy floor with one interoperable rights interface, strong public and private enforcement, concurrent state enforcement, and room for stronger state protections that preserve national functionality.
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AI-researched, unverifiedLast Reviewed
Jul 12, 2026
Cited Sources
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What is failing, what we would change, and the conclusion we are willing to defend.
The party's position, migrated faithfully from the 2024 platform: privacy and innovation should evolve together. The proposals protect both values. The document's diagnosis is that personal data, once private, is now routinely collected, exploited, and sold, often without consent, while the US response has stayed a fragmented patchwork of state laws (in contrast to the EU's GDPR and California's own CCPA) after federal proposals like the Consumer Online Privacy Rights Act and the Online Privacy Act stalled in Congress amid gridlock and industry resistance.
A federal digital privacy framework, drawing on GDPR and CCPA, that establishes national rights, definitions, and interoperable request formats while preserving compatible stronger state protections.
A dedicated federal digital privacy agency to enforce the framework nationwide, coordinate concurrent state enforcement, and maintain the common technical formats.
Promotion of privacy-enhancing technologies and data-minimization practices as a default design principle.
Individual control: clear opt-out mechanisms and transparent data practices, with companies held accountable for how they handle sensitive information.
(2026 addition) Resolve the enforcement and preemption questions that have repeatedly stalled federal privacy legislation. The original plank left them vague. ADPPA advanced from committee 53-2 in 2022 and never received a floor vote. APRA began as a bipartisan 2024 proposal with private enforcement and national preemption; its scheduled markup was canceled after substantial changes and conflict over enforcement, civil rights, preemption, and business exposure. This plank makes its own calls: yes to a private right of action, because agency bandwidth cannot carry the whole right, and targeted preemption through a published map. Federal law controls definitions, covered-entity roles, rights-request interfaces, consent signals, and reporting formats where conflicting rules would break interoperability. States retain enforcement, general consumer- protection and civil-rights law, and stronger substantive protections that remain compatible with the national interface.
Create a federal privacy floor with one interoperable rights interface, strong public and private enforcement, concurrent state enforcement, and room for stronger state protections that preserve national functionality.
Turn frustration into useful pressure.
If this position misses evidence or a lived consequence, challenge it. If it holds up, help test it locally and connect it to the issues around it.