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The Shift: The Time to Hire Privacy Experts Was Yesterday

Last week, Virginia passed the Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA), becoming the second U.S. state to have its own consumer data protection regulation. Given all of the noise around California's similar California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) and updated California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), not to mention the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it's not as though dealing with privacy statutes is a surprise for companies and their counsel. But even so, there are enough differences with the CDPA to be noteworthy—it mandates, for instance, that organizations undertake data protection and privacy impact assessments of processes involving sensitive data.

And perhaps the most pressing: Virginia's not alone. A recent budget proposal from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo includes plans for a comprehensive data privacy law. The state of Washington is considering an amended law that has already passed the senate twice. Other states are exploring the privacy area as well, and there's no guarantee their plans will follow any of the legislation that's been enacted thus far around the country. As McDermott Will & Emery partner Amy Pimentel told Law.com, "I think that we're going to have quite a headache on trying to figure out how to operationalize a compliance plan on any sort of consistent basis."