There seems to be a strong desire for regulation, which gives me some hope. On the other hand, the big tech companies have a massive lobbying operation in D.C., and I'm not naive enough to think my testimony will have much effect.

I was ready for the questioning to be far more adversarial. That was a very pleasant surprise. Another surprise was the party imbalance—many of the Republican senators did not attend.

My sense is that the current direction in drafting privacy law is "GDPR lite", on the basis that 'everybody owns their data'. I don't think that framing works, but it seems to have captured many of the senators' imaginations. I believe the time pressure for regulation is coming from the California law, which will go into effect in 2020 unless pre-empted by Federal regulation.

In principle, the privacy issue cuts across party lines and could have a real bipartisan consensus form around it. In practice, we live in polarized times. I am not optimistic, but we have to try our best.