Cisco has called for the US federal government to pass a general data privacy law. The company said the current US legal framework was "not adequate" and the competitiveness of US multinationals was suffering as a result. Cisco said it plans to engage with US lawmakers to help work towards legislation in line with that passed in the EU, Japan and other large countries.
As a supplier of network components around the world, Cisco said data privacy is core to its business. Its customers and their customers need to trust Cisco equipment will protect their data, wherever it is. The company already has its own 'privacy by design' principles to help live up to those expectations.
However, the current legal framework in the US is making its work difficult, Cisco said. The US has privacy protection legislation only for specific types of data, such as medical records or financial data, but no general, national law. California has already passed its own general data protection law, which will take effect in 2020, and this creates the risk that each state will take a different approach.
At the international level, companies also face the difficulties of the EU-US Privacy Shield, set up to ensure the legal exchange of data between the two blocs. This is "needlessly complex", difficult to explain to customers and cannot be scaled to a global agreement, Cisco said. .
The company outlined three priorities for any future US legislation: interoperability with other privacy protection systems, avoiding further fragmentation by passing a federal law in line with global thinking on the matter and reassuring customers of robust privacy rights and enforcement without costly and unnecessary litigation.
