Much of US privacy law is settled in litigation rather than legislation, which makes circuit splits the leading indicator of where exposure is heading. This hub covers the decisions that move the law.
Privacy Litigation
November 2, 2026
Ohio's 2023 budget bill added a rule requiring social platforms to get a parent's verifiable consent before a child under 16 could sign up. A federal judge in Columbus blocked it before it took effect and entered a permanent injunction in April 2025. In June 2026 a divided Sixth Circuit panel reversed, and NetChoice has until December 3, 2026 to seek Supreme Court review.
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Privacy Litigation
October 19, 2026
In 2015 the Supreme Court held 5 to 4 that the Los Angeles ordinance letting any police officer inspect a hotel's guest registry on demand was facially invalid under the Fourth Amendment, because operators had no opportunity for precompliance review. The city amended the provision in 2017 so that officers request the operator's consent.
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Privacy Litigation
October 12, 2026
In Vita v. New England Baptist Hospital the Supreme Judicial Court split 5 to 1 over whether browsing a hospital's public website is a wire communication under the Massachusetts wiretap act. The majority found the word ambiguous and applied the rule of lenity. The dissent read 'any communication' as plain. Bills filed in 2025 to rewrite the definitions went to study.
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Privacy Litigation
October 12, 2026
In 2021 the Supreme Court held 6 to 3 that California's demand for every registered charity's Schedule B, the IRS form listing major donors, violated the First Amendment on its face. The Court required narrow tailoring under exacting scrutiny and found none. California's regulation now states that Schedule B is not required.
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Standing & Damages
September 7, 2026
Decided 25 June 2021 by five votes to four, TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez took a jury verdict that had already been returned and removed three quarters of the class from federal court. This post reads the case as a case: the OFAC Name Screen product, the six-day trial, the arithmetic of the award, the reasoning on each of the three claims, and the two dissents.
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VPPA
September 7, 2026
One phrase in the Video Privacy Protection Act ("goods or services from a video tape service provider") has produced an open split among three courts of appeals over who may sue. The Supreme Court granted review on 26 January 2026 and has set argument for 14 October 2026. This post sets out what each opinion actually reasoned.
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BIPA
August 31, 2026
Two 2023 decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court set the outer bounds of exposure under the Biometric Information Privacy Act, and the legislature answered one of them in 2024. The reasoning in each is more revealing than the result: both courts reached conclusions the statutory text compelled while acknowledging the consequences.
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Pixel Tracking
August 24, 2026
Plaintiffs suing over analytics pixels, session recording and web chat rarely plead a privacy statute. They plead eavesdropping laws written for telephone wires in 1967 and 1968, which carry per-violation damages and no requirement to prove loss. This guide sets out the statutory elements those claims turn on, the party-consent question that decides most of them, and the newer pen-register theory.
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VPPA
August 12, 2026
The Video Privacy Protection Act was passed in 1988 after a newspaper published a Supreme Court nominee's video rental history. It now generates a steady stream of claims against websites that embed video and third-party tracking pixels. Two questions divide the courts: who counts as a subscriber, and what qualifies as personally identifiable information.
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