Mass. House bills would expand digital privacy rights but restrict social media for teenagers

The Massachusetts Legislature is poised to expand digital privacy rights following unanimous House passage of a bill whose provisions include banning the sale of precise location data.

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The bill now goes to a conference committee to reconcile differences with a similar, stronger Senate bill that was passed last year. After that, the legislation would be sent to Gov. Maura Healey for her signature.

As Jennifer Smith reports in CommonWealth Beacon, location data can be used to track women who have traveled to Massachusetts from states where abortion is illegal. She writes:

The House completely bans the sale of precise geolocation data but would allow the sale of all other sensitive data if the user gives consent. The location shielding would cover those visiting Massachusetts as well as its residents.

“Protecting location data is paramount if the rights in Massachusetts to reproductive health care equity are to be upheld,” said Rep. Kate Lipper-Garabedian of Melrose. Data brokers have tracked interstate visits to Planned Parenthood locations in Massachusetts, she noted, and then provided that data to an anti-abortion campaign. Now, she said, the Trump administration is purchasing location data for immigration enforcement.

“One’s personal location data should never be monetized by a private for-profit company working in concert with the dystopian government to undermine our constitutional right to due process,” Lipper-Garabedian said.

According to the advocacy group Fight for the Future, the House version “would be one of the strongest data privacy bills in the United States” and includes a provision that would allow individuals to sue large technology companies for abuses of their personal data. Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, said in a statement:

Companies shouldn’t be able to track you everywhere you go and then sell that information on the open market. Today, Massachusetts took a major step toward cracking down on Big Tech’s surveillance abuses. In Trump’s America, we know that privacy protections are a matter of life and death for LGBTQ+ youth, undocumented folks, and other vulnerable communities. We’ll continue to push for the MA legislature to pass the strongest privacy legislation possible.

Smith reports that the House and Senate must also work out their conflicts with regard to another bill, this one banning cellphone use by students while in the classroom. The House version would also ban social media accounts for children who are 13 or younger and would require 14- and 15-year-olds to have a parent or guardian’s permission before signing up.

That provision, which the governor supports, has been widely criticized on the grounds that it could harm LGBTQ youth or teenagers in abusive homes. The Senate version contains no such restriction.

Mike Deehan, reporting for Axios Boston, writes that a coalition of some 90 civil-rights and privacy groups (including Fight for the Future) have come out against the restriction, adding: “Federal judges have blocked similar laws in Florida, Louisiana and Ohio on First Amendment grounds.”