"I would love to see some kind of bipartisan Privacy Bill at the federal level in the United States in 2022," said Rob Shavell, chief executive of DeleteMe, an online data protection company. He was speaking to Orchid's Derek Silva on this week's episode of the Priv8 Podcast.

"Ideally, any federal privacy law that comes up in the United States in 2022 should mimic some of the framework of GDPR," he said. "I think everyone in the US—Republican or Democrat—can agree that the personal data crisis is a little bit out of control, and that citizens need to have their basic rights protected.

Rob added that he doesn't think the law needs to be extreme: "I don't think it has to go that far. I don't think the law has to do everything that the California Democrats want—and I don't think it has to be completely watered down, like some Texas Republicans want, either.

"I think it can go straight down the middle and just give citizens rights to access their data: the right to remove it if they want, and correct if it's incorrect. People deserve these kinds of basic protections. I think that this kind of legislation is going to come soon—and if not this year, then in the next few years to come."

In the meantime, Rob said that there are measures that people should be taking to protect their personal privacy online. "Make sure you've stopped the data from leaking out from your browser every time you use the Internet," he said, mentioning DeleteMe's tracker blocker as a means to accomplish this.

"It's important to block the third-party tracking that automatically happens in JavaScript when you're browsing the web," he said. "For instance, Google Analytics is the most prevalent of all trackers. Facebook's 'like' button is another big one."

But it's easy to be caught unawares. "There are hundreds and hundreds of ad tech companies that try to track you across the web," Rob said.

Check out Derek's entire conversation with Rob here. And don't forget to subscribe to the Priv8 Podcast on your favorite streaming service.