The privacy laws in the United States are numerous, differ from state to state, include some federal laws, and have immediate and broad implications for franchisors and franchisees. Moreover, there are non-U.S. privacy laws that impact franchising in the United States.

In the United States, three states—California, Colorado and Virginia—have enacted what could be described as comprehensive privacy laws to protect consumers and regulate how businesses conduct themselves when collecting personal/private information from consumers. California, first with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and then the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), has enacted the most comprehensive privacy law, and other states are following its model which essentially requires compliance by anyone meeting certain revenue, data volume, or organizational structure criteria, which likely includes many, if not most franchisors and/or franchisees, when they receive another party's personal or identifying information.

Unfortunately, even if you comply with California's privacy laws, you will likely not be in full compliance with any other state's privacy laws or the well-known European privacy law known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) due to the various nuances and differences between the CCPA/CPRA and those other laws.