Source: White House has begun planning a federal approach to data privacy, led by Trump's special assistant for tech Gail Slater, as EU rolls out GDPR
The White House is in the early stages of determining what a federal approach to online data privacy should look like, Axios has learned.
Context & Ripple Effects
With the EU's GDPR taking effect, Washington is moving to answer the obvious question — what is America's regime? The White House has tasked Gail Slater, Trump's special assistant for tech, with sketching a federal approach to online data privacy, per Axios. The last serious attempt on record was the 2015 White House privacy bill that would have armed the FTC with steep fine authority and tightened oversight of data brokers.
The effort moved fast: within about five weeks the administration had confirmed it was drafting a consumer privacy proposal after holding 22 meetings with 80 organizations — Facebook, Google, and AT&T among them. That consultative cadence, heavy on the regulated companies themselves, is the tell for what kind of framework this will be.
First-order effects
- Facebook, Google, and AT&T gain a seat at the table early — the meeting schedule means the largest data holders are shaping the federal baseline before any text exists.
Second-order effects
- A federal proposal puts state-level privacy legislation and any GDPR-style rights in direct competition with a Washington standard, setting up a preemption fight that the platform industry has every incentive to win.
Third-order effects
- The playbook — White House-led framework, industry consultation, override of state rules — reappears years later in the administration's federal AI framework covering preemption of state laws, suggesting privacy was the template for how this White House governs tech by executive framework rather than statute.
The trend: US tech regulation is converging on executive-branch frameworks negotiated directly with industry, trading GDPR-style statutory strictness for federal standards that preempt state law.