Earlier this week, Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Lori Trahan (D-MA) introduced the FTC Whistleblower Act of 2021 (FTCWA), which would reward and protect disclosures about potential or suspected violations of any law, rule, or regulation enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission). Modeled on the successful SEC whistleblower reward program, the FTCWA (HR 6093) could supercharge FTC enforcement of laws that prohibit fraud, deception and unfair business practices.
And an FTC whistleblower reward program could spur whistleblowers at social media and technology companies to disclose data privacy and security practices that harm consumers. As demonstrated by the success of similar laws rewarding whistleblowing about various types of fraud, offering financial incentives to encourage potential whistleblowers to take the significant risk of coming forward would substantially enhance the FTC’s ability to detect and combat deceptive trade practices.
The U.S. lacks comprehensive general privacy and data security legislation. In many ways this limits the FTC’s ability to address harmful practices. Nonetheless, through a patchwork of statutory authority, the Commission has surprisingly broad ability to address privacy and data security concerns. This expansive scope is good news for whistleblowers because the proposed bill’s protections and incentives would cast a correspondingly...
A British science journalist-turned-attorney who initiated a lawsuit that saw a Harvard University-affiliated cancer centre pay $15 million (11 million) to settle claims of alleged data misreprese...