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(Bloomberg) -- Facing growing pressure to protect their customers’ privacy, some of the biggest technology companies told Congress that they favor new federal consumer safeguards but diverged on some of the details.
“Perhaps for the first time, there is widespread agreement among industry, policy makers and many consumer groups of the need for a new and comprehensive federal privacy law,” said Leonard Cali, AT&T Inc.’s senior vice president of global public policy, in his prepared remarks. “Now is the time for decisive congressional leadership to establish a thoughtful and balanced national privacy framework.”
Cali testified alongside representatives from Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Twitter Inc. and Apple Inc. at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee that is assessing the need for new consumer protections. The hearing comes as tech companies face intense scrutiny in Washington on an array of subjects including privacy, an issue that has gained momentum even among lawmakers who are typically skeptical of regulation.
The companies are already facing tough new European privacy rules that went into effect in May, while California passed a strict data privacy law in June. Many of the calls for tougher U.S. regulation of privacy online grew out of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a data firm obtained the data of millions of the social media sites’ users without their consent.
The panel’s Republican chairman, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, said the developments of the last year “have all combined to put the issue of consumer data privacy squarely on Congress’ doorstep.”
Thune said he believed there was a strong desire...