Our State AG webinar series continues with Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and Chief of the Privacy Consumer Protection Section Michele Lucan. During our webinar, the Connecticut AG’s office described their structure and the tools available to them to enforce the state’s consumer protection laws. In particular, as the fifth state to pass comprehensive privacy legislation, AG Tong highlighted the AG office’s privacy priorities and agenda which we will focus on here in Part I. We will explore the more general consumer protection topics in Part II. In case you missed it, here is a recording of the webinar.
While the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA – Connecticut’s UDAP law) is broad and robust, in the privacy and cybersecurity space, the AG has additional authority derived from specific state laws such as the Data Breach Notification law and Connecticut’s Data Privacy Act (CTDPA). General Tong noted Connecticut’s dedication to enforcing consumer protection, as it relates to privacy, traces back to at least 2011 when it was the first state to create the Privacy Task Force and eventually a standalone Privacy Section in 2015.
Enforcing the CTDPA
AG Tong noted that the CTDPA reflects a “philosophical judgment of Connecticut to return rights and power of authority to consumers regarding their Personal Information.” As we have previously reported, the CTDPA provides for several rights such as the right to access, right to portability, right to correct mistakes, right to deletion, and the right to opt out of targeted advertising, sale, and profiling of personal data.
Continue Reading State AGs and Consumer Protection: What We Learned from . . . Connecticut Part I