6th Circuit Upholds FCC Data Breach Notification Rules
A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the FCC’s data breach notification rules in an opinion Wednesday (see 2412120056). The rules were approved 3-2 in 2023 by the previous FCC, with then-Commissioners Brendan Carr and…
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Nathan Simington dissenting. The Ohio Telecom Association, the Texas Association of Business, CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom filed petitions for review against the rules, arguing that they were outside the FCC’s authority and violated the Congressional Review Act because Congress vetoed similar requirements included with other privacy rules in 2017. But the court said the Congressional Review Act doesn’t prevent agencies from issuing new rules that are similar to parts of rules nullified by CRA resolutions. If Congress had wanted the CRA to do that, “it could have said so,” said the opinion from Judge Jane Stranch. “That is not the language it chose.” The 2017 rules and the 2024 FCC data breach order also aren’t “substantively identical,” the opinion said.