A 31-year-old federal law on electronic communications needs to be updated given the wide range of recent technological advances, according to privacy advocates and tech companies.
In response, last week, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, introduced the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) Modernization Act of 2017—which brings government policy up-to-date with these advances. The current ECPA , a law from 1986, is used to set rules regarding how government agencies can access email, text messages, location information and other personal data.
