State fervor for child online safety bills continued apace this week. Wyoming and Utah approved age-verification measures, while several states advanced bills or introduced them. Kids privacy and online safety have been a major focus for state legislatures this year (see 2502250017 and 2501170053). Accordingly, Privacy Daily is tracking more than 100 of these bills across the country (see map).
Montana senators overwhelmingly supported privacy bills aimed at education and government on Tuesday, sending them to the House. The Senate previously passed bills regulating neural privacy (see 2501290004) and revising Montana’s comprehensive privacy law (see 2502240069).
Stick with the New Hampshire privacy law that took effect Jan. 1, industry lobbyists urged during a state House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. The committee heard testimony on HB-195, which sponsor Rep. Bob Lynn (R) described as a supplement to the comprehensive New Hampshire Data Privacy Act (NHDPA). It’s “a very reasonable bill" that had bipartisan support last year, he said.
Privacy experts said they’re closely watching how a direct relationship is defined in California Privacy Protection Agency draft rules for the Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform (DROP), an upcoming data deletion mechanism required by the California Delete Act. The CPPA last week posted draft rule changes to data broker registration rules (see 2502270066). The board is scheduled to weigh the draft and get a DROP update from staff at its meeting Friday.
A Maryland Democrat and state retailers rallied for a bill that would remove teeth from data minimization rules in the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (MODPA) during a livestreamed hearing Tuesday. But consumer groups lambasted HB-1365, as they did shortly after it was introduced last month (see 2502100032), arguing that it would gut the privacy law that takes effect Oct. 1.
Washington state bills requiring privacy and AI transparency are apparently dead after missing a Friday cutoff to clear fiscal committees in the legislature. However, child privacy bills in the House and Senate cleared their respective fiscal committees in time.
Vermont Rep. Monique Priestley (D) criticized a comprehensive privacy bill introduced Thursday in the state Senate. Sen. Thomas Chittenden (D) introduced S-93 on the same day that the Senate Institutions Committee started walking through the Senate version (S-71) of Priestley’s previously introduced H-208, which also seeks a broad data privacy law (see 2502130013).
A Vermont Senate panel narrowed the scope of a kids code bill at a livestreamed meeting Thursday. The Institutions Committee then split 3-2 to clear S-69, with Republicans casting the no votes.
California-based Background Alert must shut down through 2028, or face a $50,000 fine for failing to register as a data broker and pay an annual fee, according to terms of a settlement with the California Privacy Protection Agency. CPPA, which announced the agreement Thursday, raised privacy concerns with the people-search company’s business model in its Wednesday order approving the settlement.
A video games industry lobbyist raised questions Thursday about Meta’s involvement in an Alabama child online safety bill requiring app stores to check users’ ages. However, at a livestreamed hearing, the Alabama Senate Children Committee supported SB-187, an app store age-verification bill spotted in several other states including Utah. The panel also cleared SB-186, requiring that phone and tablet manufacturers activate internet filters by default to protect kids.