On Monday, police in Florida abandoned a pilot program that had put Amazon’s facial recognition powers at their disposal. On Wednesday, representatives from the country’s most powerful technology companies will gather in San Francisco to take a hard look at the industry’s approach to privacy. And on Thursday, the California legislature will vote on a bill that would grant internet users more power over their data than ever before in the United States. Any of these alone would mark a good week for privacy. Together, and combined with even more major advancements from earlier this month, they represent a tectonic shift.

Progress can be difficult to measure; it often comes in drips and drops, or not at all for long stretches of time. But in recent weeks, privacy advocates have seen torrential gains, at a rate perhaps not matched since Edward Snowden revealed how the National Security Agency spied on millions of US citizens in 2013. A confluence of factors—generational, judicial, societal—have created momentum where previously there was none. The trick now is to sustain it.

Awake and Alert

If the US really has found itself in the middle of a digital privacy awakening, you can of course credit the recent spate of headline-grabbing scandals as the kick-starter. Cambridge Analytica illicitly took the personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users and turned it into psychographically targeted political ads. Equifax let slip the sensitive details—including Social Security numbers—of 148 million Americans because it couldn’t be bothered to patch a known vulnerability. And just a few short weeks ago, many learned for the first time that mobile carriers like Verizon and AT&T have for years sold their location data to shadowy third-party companies—including some that don’t carefully vet who can access it.

“All of these high-profile stories over the last year or so have really put consideration into overdrive,” says Michelle Richardson, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Freedom, Security, and Technology Project. “Things like Facebook or Equifax, the location data, it’s all hitting at once, and people are losing patience with companies who are promising to change but aren’t doing it.”

Facebook, to its credit, pledged to cut ties with data brokers in March. But otherwise the company has spent its time ducking questions from both Congress and the media about how its core business proposition clashes with prioritizing data privacy. It has also taken some of the heat off of companies like Google, which grabs as much or more data, without a fiasco to shine a spotlight on its everyday practices.

'People are losing patience with companies who are promising to change but aren’t doing it.' Michelle Richardson, CDT

But there are signs that the fallout from Cambridge Analytica has still had a wide impact. After The New York Times broke the story of carriers sharing location data with third parties—and the abuse of that system—in May, it took just five weeks for Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint to curtail the practice. They did so in part at the urging of senator Ron Wyden (D - Oregon), but also to avoid the sustained public opprobrium Facebook and Equifax endured. What had for so long felt like shouts into a void ultimately echoed throughout the industry.

You can see those reverberations in the Wednesday summit organized by the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group that represents Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, and dozens of other major tech companies. First reported by Axios, the meeting will focus not on standards or tariffs, but on a topic that has often seemed anathema in Silicon Valley.

"Protecting consumers’ privacy is a top concern for our industry. As technologies evolve, we continually examine our approach to privacy,” says ITI spokesman Jose Castaneda. “This week’s convening will continue an important conversation that examines how our users’ and customers’ privacy is protected while also ensuring our ability to meet their demands for innovative products and services."