"We need to think about much more of a framework approach."

Congress has passed some laws covering consumer data privacy, such as the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), but existing laws do not comprehensively cover consumer privacy in general.

Bills have been proposed, but they have all died in committee or on the House floor, said Ari Schwartz, chief operating officer with the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a public policy advocacy group.

Schwartz said he expects new legislation to be put forward again this year. Whether it will pass is another question. "By the end of this year we'll be able to determine whether this Congress can deal with it," he said. "There's a lot going on right now because of the economy, but there are members who have said they want to see privacy legislation."

Although CDT was a charter member of the Consumer Privacy Legislative Forum, the group dropped out about six months after its creation when members decided to focus on working with industry rather than public interest groups, Schwartz said. The split was amicable, he said.