US House Republicans are circulating text for a consumer privacy bill, MLex has learned. The proposal is being discussed at the same time privacy regulators from across the globe converged in Washington, DC, and met with legislative staff.
US House Republicans are circulating text for a consumer privacy bill, MLex has learned.While the draft legislation has yet to be publicly released, it is being discussed during the same week that privacy regulators from across the globe converged in Washington, DC, and met with legislative staff.
In the Rayburn House of Representatives building Wednesday, data protection regulators from Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa crowded around a large table in the wood-paneled House Energy and Commerce Committee for a briefing from congressional staffers about US legislative plans.
Among the data protection authorities, or DPAs, in attendance were Anu Talus, chair of the European Data Protection Board; Bertrand du Marais, a commissioner at the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés, or CNIL; Philippe Dufresne, Canada’s privacy commissioner; and Tsitsi Mariwo of the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, or POTRAZ, the country’s data protection director.
The draft legislation comes from the nine-member Republican-only privacy working group, which was established in February 2025 (see here). The group is led by Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee Chair John Joyce, a Pennsylvania Republican.
The working group is made up of members mostly from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Joyce was formerly vice chairman of the committee.
The group’s draft comes as the group put out a request for information and met with more than 170 organizations representing small businesses, privacy advocates, researchers and trade associations. Staff from the Energy and Commerce committee also had a meeting with privacy regulators from across the globe who were in town for a global privacy conference.*
While the DPAs were briefed on US legislative plans, they were tight-lipped about what they heard when questioned by MLex reporters after the meeting. “It was an idea exchange,” Talus said, declining to comment further.
“There were comments and questions from DPAs from all over the world,” Dufresne said, saying that child data protection issues and the need to assure continued innovation were part of the conversation.
“We’re seeing lots of opportunities for alignment,” Dufresne added.
*IAPP Global Summit 2026: Privacy-AI Governance, Washington, DC, March 30-April 1, 2026.
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