Iowa lawmakers continue to work on bills ahead of the first cut-off date for bills to get out of subcommittees.

District 23 Representative Ray Sorensen says that right now, the bill that has most of his attention is the Consumer Data Protection Bill he is sponsoring in the Economic Growth and Technology Committee that he chairs. He gives some details about the bill.

“For everyone’s knowledge, consumer data protection refers to the measures and practices put in place to safeguard the personal information of individuals who use goods and services provided by businesses or organizations.”

Sorensen adds that this information can pertain to health, names, financial data and several other things. He says it’s the responsibility of the business or organization that collects the data to make sure it’s used for its intended purposes, and that the information isn’t used or accessed by unauthorized individuals.

Sorensen says that this bill is an initial framework, and that if it passes this session, it would take one more full session to get it fleshed out and caught up with where technology is at. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that while this is a great step, there is more that should be done.

“With this bill, I always remind people that the federal government really should be acting on a consumer data protection bill for the entire country, not just relying on Iowa or each state to make their own. We kind of need a blanket coverage from the federal government.”

Sorensen says that if this bill is signed into law, Iowa would only be the sixth state to have a law pertaining to consumer data protection.