Keypoint: The 2024 state legislative session picks up where the 2023 session left off with lawmakers already pursuing consumer, children’s, biometric, and consumer health data privacy bills as well as data broker bills.
We are back for our fifth year of tracking proposed state privacy legislation and fourth year of providing weekly updates. As in past years, we will track proposed consumer data privacy legislation through our weekly updates and State Privacy Law Tracker map. We also already released our State Children’s Privacy Law Tracker map and summary of the status of proposed bills.
Last year, we also tracked proposed biometric, consumer health, data broker, algorithmic discrimination, and automated employment decision tools bills. This year, we will continue to track all of those bills but we are changing our format to bring you even more useful information. Here’s what is changing:
First, instead of providing historical information in a long blog post, we will provide the same information on bill tracking charts. This will hopefully streamline and consolidate the information into a more digestible format.
Second, in the coming weeks, we will make available expanded bill tracking charts to clients through a new client portal. Stay tuned for more information.
Finally, with the rapidly expanding number of algorithmic discrimination bills being filed, we are creating a separate update email to track those bills as well as other AI-related bills and regulations. We also will provide a new tracker map for certain types of AI bills.
We hope that these alerts and maps combined with our monthly privacy litigation updates will provide you with the best all-around coverage of emerging US privacy law.
Now to our first weekly update. As always, the contents provided below are time-sensitive and subject to change. If you are not already subscribed to our blog, consider doing so to stay updated.
Table of Contents
- What’s New
- Bill Tracker Charts
- Bill Tracker Maps
1. What’s New?
As we previously reported, the year started off quickly with New Jersey and New Hampshire passing consumer data privacy bills. Lawmakers in a number of other states have introduced consumer data privacy bills, including Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. In addition, there are many states with bills that carried over from the prior legislative session. Some of the states where we expect to see movement with carry over bills are Minnesota, Maine, Wisconsin, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Oklahoma.
To that end, the Wisconsin Assembly passed a consumer data privacy bill in November so we will be tracking that bill closely. Last week, Minnesota Representative Elkins presented his bill to an interim committee. He reported that he is currently working on an author amendment to file when the legislature opens in February. Further, in Maine, lawmakers have been engaging in extensive negotiations to reconcile differences between two competing bills.
In another wrinkle, lawmakers in Colorado, Virginia, Tennessee, and Utah have introduced bills to amend their existing consumer data privacy laws. Colorado currently has two bills pending. One bill would amend the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) to add children’s privacy protections similar to those added to Connecticut’s law last year. The bill is sponsored by CPA co-authors Senators Rodriguez and Lundeen. The other bill would expand the CPA’s definition of sensitive data to include biological and neural data.
The Virginia amendment bills focus on children’s privacy and tracking technologies. The Tennessee amendment bill would add data broker requirements. Finally, the Utah amendment bill would expand the applicability of the law and add a private right of action for social media companies.
Washington also has two new bills that more narrowly deal with consumer privacy that we are following. One bill would require entities to provide 100 word summaries of their privacy policies. The other bill would restrict the use of point of sale personal information. It is worth noting that Washington has a short legislative session this year.
With respect to biometric privacy bills, lawmakers filed new bills in Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Vermont. In addition, there are carry over bills in a number of states, including Maine, Massachusetts, and New York.
For a recap of the latest developments in children’s privacy bills, see Shelby Dolen’s article here. We expect to see a lot of movement with children’s privacy bills this year.
Moving to data broker bills, lawmakers have introduced bills in Hawaii, Tennessee, and Washington. The Washington bill – Representative Shelley Kloba’s HB2277 – was heard in committee on January 19 and is scheduled for executive session on January 31.
Finally, with respect to consumer health data privacy bills, New York Senate Bill S158D passed the Senate on January 22. It also passed the Senate during last year’s session but died in the Assembly. In addition, Washington My Health My Data inspired bills have been filed by lawmakers in Hawaii and Vermont.
2. Bill Tracker Charts
For more information on all of the bills introduced to date, including links to the bills, bill status, last action, hearing dates, and bill sponsor information, please see the following charts:
These charts are updated on a weekly basis. Husch privacy clients can email fred.sager@huschblackwell.com to obtain unredacted copies of the charts. As noted, this additional information will be available through a new client portal in the coming weeks.
3. Bill Tracker Maps
To access our tracker maps, click the following links: