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While northerly climes were frosting over at the tail end of 2024, the Insights Association took a sharp look at the prior year in tax policy, privacy and artificial intelligence, while scoping out President Trump’s new Administration. We also covered an array of privacy, data security, telephone and other legislation and regulatory moves impacting the insights industry in December.

As part of our 2024 advocacy efforts, IA answered 93 legal queries from our members, while having meetings and conversations with 324 federal and state policymakers, their staff, and government agencies.

Looking back on 2024, looking ahead to 2025

IA took a retrospective look at what happened on tax issues, privacy, and AI this past year and what we can expect moving forward:

• The insights industry faced more than a few tax policy complications in 2024, but the Insights Association was able to help stave off new insights-specific taxes in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York and South Carolina.
• Our industry also faced comprehensive consumer data privacy legislation in dozens of states, with 13 states’ bills defeated and seven states’ ending up in law.
• 2024 also featured some impactful new state laws impacting the insights industry’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) at the state level, and a ton of other AI bills that failed.

Donald Trump will once again be sworn in as President on January 20, 2025, so we also started setting expectations for his new Administration’s impact on the insights industry:

• IA started by considering the future leadership and agenda of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the chief U.S. regulator of the insights industry. What will the new Administration bring for the FTC’s leadership, its focus, and issues like privacy, data security, artificial intelligence, and noncompete agreements? IA explored that, along with his picks for the FTC, one of whom will take charge on inauguration day.

• We also analyzed other key leadership nominations and positions in his new Administration and what they could mean for the insights industry over the next four years, including at the Labor Department, Census Bureau, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Commerce Department, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Health and Human Services (HHS), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Consumer privacy and data security

Insights professionals should be eying a new law in Colorado, which builds upon the existing Colorado Privacy Act by adding specific requirements for collecting, retaining, processing or using someone’s biometric data.

In Texas, only several months into that state’s comprehensive consumer data privacy law taking effect, the state Attorney General (AG) is letting companies know they’d better be in compliance.

Meanwhile, at the federal level:

• Sponsors of minors’ privacy legislation in the U.S. Senate (KOSA and COPPA 2.0) proposed gutting the provisions on market research that had previously garnered support for the bill from the Insights Association, one of many reasons contributing to its demise at the end of December.
• A Congressional hearing considered reforms to how the FTC operates. The concerns raised will be useful to consider as the Trump Administration’s preferred leadership takes the reins at the FTC and digs into policy issues of interest to our industry.
• The Improving Contractor Cybersecurity Act would require cybersecurity measures for federal information technology contractors via vulnerability disclosure policies and programs.
• The Digital Platform Commission Act would create a new federal agency to regulate online platforms, whose regulations would also be enforced by state Attorneys General and private litigation.
• The Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act is intended to create a new federal agency to go after "Big Tech" for competition and consumer protection concerns, but would instead target pretty much every for-profit company operating online, including the insights industry.
• The Health and Location Data Protection Act would prohibit many (or even most) insights companies and organizations from selling, sharing or transferring any health or location data. Violations would be punishable by the FTC, state Attorneys General and private lawsuits.
• The Health Infrastructure Security and Accountability Act would require tougher data security standards for health care entities and business associates regulated by HIPAA, while uncapping fines for violators.
• The Making Age-Verification Technology Uniform, Robust, and Effective Act would require social media platforms to verify users’ ages and set a minimum age limit of 16 years old for accessing such platforms, while the Parental Data Rights Act would require parental notification regarding social media use for anyone 17 years old or younger and access to their usage data.
• A new report from the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) highlights “gaps in protection” in the comprehensive state consumer privacy laws because they provide “exemptions for financial institutions subject to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).”

Finally, IA provided a new batch of model contract clauses (strictly for company/department members only): “Model AI Disclaimers and Disclosures.”

Telephone

• A Wisconsin law prohibits caller identification manipulation or spoofing for purposes of fraud or other nefarious deceptive activities.
• The FCC Legal Enforcement Act would let the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) pursue penalties for Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations directly.
• The Protecting American Consumers from Robocalls Act would allow all phone numbers (business, residential and cellular) to be listed in the national telemarketing do not call registry and allow for more private lawsuits.
• The United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act would require disclosure of physical location by call center employees to callers and require Labor Department tracking (and punishing) of call center offshoring.

Miscellaneous

• A sweeping registration law for many U.S. businesses and nonprofits, the Corporate Transparency Act, has been temporarily enjoined by a court decision.
• Legislation would establish a U.S. House Committee on the Elimination of Nonessential Federal Programs (once known as the Byrd Committee), including a provision supported by the Insights Association to require a yellow pages test that would help prevent government from competing with the private sector.

Chilling challenges for the insights industry

As we charge into another big year of advocacy for the insights industry, the challenges we face are bigger than the snow drifts and freezing temperatures currently assaulting the nation’s capital, and it will take a lot more than mukluks and shovels to tackle them.

None of the Insights Association’s advocacy would be possible without your dedicated membership and sponsorship, so we wish you a happy and prosperous new year ahead and look forward to our continued partnership for the insights industry.

Like any other year, we are available to address your questions and concerns on legislative, regulatory and legal issues, so please maintain contact.

This information is not intended and should not be construed as or substituted for legal advice. It is provided for informational purposes only. It is advisable to consult with private counsel on the precise scope and interpretation of any laws/regulation/legislation and their impact on your particular business.