More Regulation, Stronger Investigations and Home Tech Devices Concerns to Come in 2020, New Gibson Dunn Report Warns

One of the biggest trends from 2019 was the increased significance and complexity of privacy-related regulatory investigations, according to the report's co-author Alexander Southwell, former cybercrime prosecutor and chair of Gibson Dunn's U.S. Privacy, Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection Practice Group. "The scope and breadth of investigations and the magnitude of resolutions, both in the U.S. and the EU, signals how important privacy issues have become to regulators and how significant those regulatory investigations can become to companies," he says. For example, in March of 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued orders to seven U.S. Internet broadband providers and related entities seeking information about how they collect, retain, use, and disclose information about consumers and their devices. And early this year, the FTC announced that it has strengthened its data security orders, making them more specific, increasing third-party assessor accountability, and elevate data security considerations to the C-suite and Board level.