With cyberattacks on the rise, our data privacy has never been in greater peril. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s work helping keep that information safe has been welcome, including his recent call for Meta to step up efforts to thwart hackers. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, protections can go too far. And now we need his leadership to set things straight.

Last year, when the Illinois Supreme Court ruled against White Castle in a biometric data case, many were hopeful that the decision would spur businesses to enhance consumer protection. Since the decision, however, litigation has become unwieldy and unhelpful. Today, nearly anyone can sue a company or its employers for collecting biometric data. Worse, they’re incentivized to do so, sometimes in frivolous cases, because the 15-year-old law that White Castle violated authorized high-dollar settlements. 

Now, Democrats and the Illinois business community are teaming up to plot a responsible path forward — one that ensures data protection without throwing responsible companies under the bus. The good news, if you can call it that, is that beyond our experience in Illinois, we now have on clear display an illustration of how not to handle concerns about consumer privacy. The Department of Justice (DOJ) just announced its intention to bring an antitrust against Apple explicitly on the grounds that the company’s data privacy efforts impede competition.  

The Justice Department’s new suit claims to be filed in pursuit of the public interest. But the substance of the complaint, made under the guise of antitrust, comes down to little more than a cobbled-together litany of unconnected, minor, and “solution in search of problem”-type allegations. The government, for example, alleges that Apple deploys several tactics to prevent users from switching to other devices or technologies, when, in reality, the very guidelines and policies the DOJ is targeting are the foundation of Apple’s strong privacy and security features. Without them, consumer data would not be nearly so safe. 

And that’s my underlying concern: DOJ is signaling that it will go after companies almost regardless of the underlying merits of a case, just so long as its efforts elicit headlines. And that’s why we need Attorney General Raoul to take a stand. By declining to sign on — by pragmatically working to protect data and eschewing expensive, frivolous lawsuits — he can point the way forward.

Not all antitrust suits are meritless. The Justice Department’s suit against Microsoft in the 1990s centered on a real concern — namely that the software giant’s deliberate effort to prevent customers from using competitors’ services harmed consumers. The Apple case, by contrast, targets a company for keeping consumer data safe. It’s a publicity stunt. And it’s beneath the dignity of Attorney General Raoul’s office. He is doing a great deal already to aid in the effort to protect data. And I’m confident he will see the wisdom in staying the course.

Lindsay Mark Lewis has been the executive director and a board member of the Progressive Policy Institute since 2010. Prior to joining PPI, Lewis spent more than 20 years working for U.S. policymakers and campaigns.