Ad Trade Groups Slam Calif. Location Privacy Bill
National advertising trade groups opposed a California location privacy bill (AB-1355) this week. The bill would prohibit covered entities from using an individual’s location information unless the individual has opted in and it’s necessary to provide goods or services requested by that person.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
AB-1355 is inconsistent with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and other state privacy laws, said the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies, Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Advertising Federation and the Digital Advertising Alliance in a joint letter Tuesday to Assembly Privacy Committee Chair Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D), Vice Chair Diane Dixon (R) and the bill’s sponsor, Assemblymember Chris Ward (D). The Privacy Committee is scheduled to hear testimony on AB-1355 at an April 1 hearing.
Also, the bill “would unreasonably limit the collection, use, and transfer of ‘location information’ in ways that would inhibit Californians from receiving beneficial and even critical messaging and services,” the ad groups said. In addition, while most state privacy laws regulate the processing of ‘precise’ or ‘specific’ geolocation information, defined similarly across the states,” AB-1355 “proposes an entirely different definition for regulated ‘location information,’ and that definition could capture almost all data collection in the ecosystem, beyond the types of data captured in other state laws,” they warned.
AB-1355 could also raise compliance challenges for businesses that track geolocation for logistics and fleet management, an attorney wrote last month (see 2502280024).